


i just don’t know how i’m doing (i’m so curious about you)

by larrymurphycansteponme



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bittersweet, Fluff and Angst, M/M, also i relate a lot, sean is a mess bless him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 08:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19437487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larrymurphycansteponme/pseuds/larrymurphycansteponme
Summary: Senior year is dauntingly close, which scares Sean. It scares him so fucking much.





	i just don’t know how i’m doing (i’m so curious about you)

**Author's Note:**

> HI OK SO IVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS FOR THREE WHOLE WEEKS AND I AM. SO PROUD. OH WOW.  
> hope y’all enjoy my longass mess. this is kinda a venty fic based on my own feelings about being in the penultimate year of high school. also im british so don’t attack me for saying crisps thank u it means “””chips”””
> 
> also i originally put all my fucking italics in this but then i gave up because ao3 broke so like sorry i didn’t put the Spanish and book titles in italics but honestly fuck you that shit took me fifty minutes and then it got DELETED

There’s always a moment, as Sean comes to a halt at the end of the track, where he bends over and leans on his knees, panting, sweating, spitting, where he is certain his heart is going to hammer out of his chest. That some vital artery will rupture and blood will come pumping out at an unimaginably high pressure. Track is hot and hard, and the sun beating down makes his shirt stick to his back more than usual. His breaths are short, laboured, gulping down air as much as possible. It’s too warm for this shit. Soon enough, it’ll be summer break, and school will be out. Senior year is dauntingly close, which scares him. It scares him so fucking much.

The past year has seemed so mediocre. So painfully uneventful. Everything Sean has aspired to do has never come to be. Asking Jenn Murphy out was the first thing on the agenda, and sure, he did that, and she said she’d like that, but it fucking crashed and burned, didn’t it? He’s still failing Math. The whole idea of being in a relationship is painfully underwhelming. He doesn’t want to spend time with her. Lyla will drag him out to concerts, to parties, even just to the park, to skate, to smoke, whatever, but nothing feels good anymore. Life is this never ending cycle of school, track, babysitting. Doing the stuff he’s supposed to do and no more. Having no escape, no real exit from monotony of Junior year.

He’s sixteen. Shouldn’t there be more to life than the ache of your lungs after a race? Shouldn’t you be able to feel more than the slapping of your shoes against the track?

“Dude,” Lyla says, once Sean is out of the changing room, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, “you look like shit.”

They’re gonna get pizza, and sit in the park, and smoke. Fucking kill themselves. Everything in Sean’s life up until this point has led to him giving himself lung cancer with his best friend. He hates it. Sean doesn’t usually feel in extremes; he’s indifferent, he’s the friend who just stays out of drama, the one who doesn’t want to be involved in things that aren’t his business, who wants to deescalate every situation in existence. But, fuck, he can’t stand this. This life he’s forcing himself to lead.

But, he just laughs, and shrugs, and says he always looks like shit. And Lyla agrees. She’s grinning, walking backwards along the pavement to be face to face with him, as he trails behind, weaving around people, always careful, always cautious, and yet still bouncing about with the same energy as a newborn puppy. Lyla is good. Lyla is one of the few, good and consistent things in Sean’s life. Unlike everyone else who didn’t have to, she stayed. She even stuck it out longer than people who were supposed to forever. Loyalty is something Sean only realised he values recently. He can’t trust people who just bail, whenever it’s inconvenient for them to be somewhere. People who drift about from place to place, unable to find a home, not even wanting, searching for a home. People who are unable to commit to anything, even others, scare Sean.

At the same time, he wants to scrape away those who incessantly cling, like gum to the bottom of your shoe. Sean is constantly conflicted between running away and doing something new, something exciting, and staying. Staying with what he knows and love and always, always avoiding change.

Lyla laughs, and then she coughs. They’re sitting under a tree in the park, cross-legged, both of them clutching cigarettes. Despite that ugly, hacking sound, Lyla smiles, and talks about a cute girl in her English class, and continues on with life. With mediocrity, with settling for this. Amounting to small time stoners with cripplingly low self esteem and a lack of ambition. Sean finds his hand curling up tighter around his cigarette, dirt twisting and flourishing as he digs the butt down into the ground. Smoke splutters up into the air one last time. The tree branches dance in the breeze, swaying from side to side, and birds are chirping. A plane is heard soaring overhead.

“What’s wrong?”

Jenn kept asking him that today. What’s wrong, Sean? Why can’t you just seem to get a grip? What’s bugging you so much that you’re acting like the world is ending?

The thing is, Jenn is nice. And she’s cute. Nice, and cute, and smart, and Sean guesses they get on well. People say they make a nice couple. But all Sean finds himself doing nowadays is going to track after school, running faster than he probably should, going to the park with Lyla and smoking as they eat pizza. Avoiding Jenn. Avoiding his family.

Staring at his dad like a total fucking idiot, Sean finds himself unable to answer the question. He couldn’t answer it when his fucking girlfriend asked him, so why would it be any different now? If he does answer it, truthfully or not, Sean will just start crying, and he really doesn’t want do that. Crying is so ugly. So hard.

Today sucked. Sean’s as shit at Math as he ever was, and Jenn is pissing him off, and track sucks, and a plane flew over the park whilst he and Lyla were hanging out, and it really annoyed him because that stupid soaring sound muffled the best part of a song he was showing Lyla, so he had to start it all over again as to not ruin the whole thing. And now his dad wants to know what’s wrong. Ha.

“Nothing.” He says, and shrugs, and blinks. Then, he rubs his nose with the back of his hand, and then, he heads for his room. Doesn’t want to talk to his dad right now. Maybe not ever.

Sean feels so stupid thinking this. He feels like some tortured, angsty, teen artist who constantly complains about how shit their life is, and it leaves him questioning if these feelings, these thoughts are even genuine. If this misery is fabricated, if everything he’s been going through is just his brain, his fucked up brain demanding he must romanticise the hell out of depression. He wants to scream. He shuts the door to his room, maybe a little too hard, maybe hoping someone will hear and get worried about him. His sketchbook is lying open on his desk, blank pages waiting to be filled. But there is nothing left in Sean, not even a half-hearted will to pick up a pencil and draw. Instead, he finds himself curled up in bed, clenching and unclenching his fists, imagining how it would feel to punch something. Hard.

A series of images loop in his head. Jenn, quirking her head to the side; his shoes, beating down on the race track after school; Lyla, walking backwards; the splutter of smoke; a plane. Over and over, never changing, repeating themselves as the days do.

Fuck.

•

Running. Sean is running. There’s a race, today, after school, and it’s with some Seniors. He’s running faster than he thinks he’s ever run before, heart beating, arms pumping, left, right, left, right. The sensation of his feet against the tarmac is the only thing Sean can really feel. Everything is a red and green and brown blur, and only the white lines along the track can guide him. That same fear, that his heart might just burst, is bubbling up again. His lungs are empty and, sure, he crosses the finishing line first, but as he staggers and doubles over to catch his breath once more, Sean heaves with this horrible, new feeling. Something. Not just monotony and mediocrity.

His hands are planted firmly on his knees, and he can feel the beads of sweat running from his forehead down to the tip of his nose. The spit in his mouth is hot, and tastes a little like blood. Sean feels disappointment.

The bleachers are pretty fucking sparse. Lyla, Jenn and Eric are all sitting at the very top, cheering him on half-heartedly now that he’s finished. There’s only four other kids, sitting on the third row from the bottom. Sean guesses they’re Seniors, but it doesn’t seem like they’re there for the kids he’s been running against. They’re impatient, bouncing about, jumping at the bit to do something, once everyone else has cleared out. One of them, a girl, has purple hair, and she smiles at Sean when they make eye contact for a brief second. Sean finally stands straight, and wipes some of the sweat from his forehead onto the back of his hand, and then his shorts.

In the changing room, a shower spurts to life. The water is fucking cold, but it’s almost welcome. Sean’s skin is burning. Melting. All of the sweat and dust sticking to his body is flooded away in a wave of crisp, cool water. The tiles on the floor turn a darker shade of grey as they get wetter. Condensation beads and steam grows. Sean tilts his head up, slicking his hair back with his hands— fuck, it’s getting too long— and lets the water get in his eyes. It stings. He doesn’t really care. Something about this shower is cathartic for him, and as all of the filth spirals down the drain, he is a little more certain about the filth spiralling his mind.

When he exits the changing rooms, Jenn scruffs his damp hair up a little, and kisses him on the cheek. Everyone makes their respective jokes, and Lyla gives Sean a particularly shit-eating and suggestive grin. They’re going to go to the park, and they might skate, but they’ll definitely smoke. And Sean is certain a plane will rumble over them at some point.

He can’t help but wonder what those four kids are going to be doing tonight. The looping finally shifts. Jenn, quirking her head to the side; his shoes, beating down on the race track after school; Lyla, walking backwards; the splutter of smoke; a plane; a girl, with purple hair, smiling.

•

“I spent, like, three hours on this.”

Daniel is trying to show Sean something. To be honest, he has no clue what it’s meant to be, but it vaguely (and Sean means fucking vaguely) resembles a robot. It’s crude craftsmanship reminds him of the rocket ship Daniel gifted him a while ago. The wonder and excitement in his eyes is sweet, really, as he waves this card-and-lollipop-stick creation about in their living room.

“Wow,” he says, “super impressive.”

This makes Daniel halt, mid-waltz with his robot. His expression drops, along with his raised hand clutching the craft. It hangs limply by his side. “You’re being sarcastic.” He insists, and Sean can’t even deny it. He’s fucking tired.

“Sure,” he pinches the bridge of his nose, “whatever.”

Sean doesn’t want to have to babysit his little brother all the time. Dad’s out on a job, and of course they’d never hire anyone to keep an eye on Daniel, because Sean’s always there. He doesn’t get a say in it. He just has to do it. He has to sit and listen to Daniel and wish he was anywhere else, doing literally anything else. It’s not that Sean doesn’t love his brother, because he does. It’s more that he’s nine years old, and a huge liability whenever Sean wants to do something. He can’t help it, but that doesn’t mean it sucks less, or anything.

Daniel sits down heavily on the couch, at Sean’s feet. “Where’s Jenn?”

“What?”

Shrugging, Daniel continues. “Jenn hasn’t been around in ages. Or Lyla...”

This makes Sean laugh, ever so slightly. “I already told you, enano, Lyla’s cheating on you.”

“Why are you going out with Jenn?” Daniel asks, so innocently, so unaware that the question he’s just posed to his brother is so tragically complex to answer.

“... I,” blinking, Sean runs a hand through his hair, momentarily pulling it back from his face, “because we get on? And she’s nice?”

“But you get on with Lyla. And she’s nice.” The assured and certain tone Daniel is talking in makes Sean feel uncomfortable. The kid is fucking nine. What does he know about the world that Sean doesn’t?

He sits up from his slouched position on the couch, and clears his throat. “Yeah, well, Lyla’s my best friend. I don’t love her like... like in a going-out way.”

“So you’d only go out with someone if you loved them?”

Sean stares at Daniel for a second. Takes in the softness, the roundness of his face, all wide eyes and big smiles. Awe seems to be the only thing Daniel ever experiences, besides anger. He’s a bit of a brat. But, he’s curious, and because of that, he’ll probably wind up a whole lot smarter than his big brother. His idiot big brother. God, Sean is a fucking moron.

“... yeah.” He says.

This seems to satisfy Daniel, who immediately bounds up from the couch. Grabbing the TV remote tightly in both of his hands, and switching it on. The screen illuminated with an array of bright colours, as the end of a theme to one of the various cartoons Daniel watches blares from the speakers. He doesn’t really care. Once Daniel has an answer, he moves on. He’s sitting, cross legged on the floor, silent and attentive in the face of some dumb kids show. Sean overcomplicates everything and finds himself asking if what he knows is even true.

But, right now, he thinks he might know one truth.

•

“I just...” Sean swallows the lump rising in his throat, “I don’t feel the same way, anymore.”

There is only one month of school left. Sean and Jenn sit, side by side, on a bench, in the park. There isn’t a cloud in the sky today, and Sean can’t see a single fucking plane. Good.

Jenn looks like she almost expected this. Her expression isn’t sad, just, sort of indifferent. An indifference that makes Sean envious. She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, and blinks. And then blinks again. “Well,” there’s a pause, where she considers what she’s about to say, “thanks. I guess. For telling me.”

She stands up, towering drastically above Sean. He can’t will his legs to work. There isn’t a single part of him that wants to say any more. This is it. This is over. He should probably be a bit more sensitive, apologise, or something, but he just can’t. What’s the point? She’ll think the same of him no matter what. Sean has resigned himself to being a shitty person at this point, everything he despises, someone unable to commit to anything properly.

Jenn leaves, and Sean stays, sitting on the bench, sweltering in the heat.

And then, as if fate has dictated that this moment must come to be, a girl with purple hair walks past. Her bangs are straight and choppy, but the rest of her hair is braided and swept to one side, with various different beads strung along them. The sides of her head are shaved. There is something so utterly chaotic and yet still so unfathomably sick about this girl’s hair. Sean can’t ever imagine doing something like that. It’s fucking reversible, and Sean can’t imagine it just because it would take effort to change again.

She’s swinging a blue, plastic carrier bag by her side as she walks. Sean only realises he’s staring at her like a lemon when they make eye contact, again. He wonders if she’ll remember him from that race, and then becomes certain she won’t. There isn’t anything particularly memorable about Sean. No real incentive to stay, to commemorate. 

But the girl stops walking. Stopping, turning, tilting her head, she asks him a question.

“You alright?”

Her accent is thick, Southern. It honestly catches Sean off-guard, because he’s never heard someone from here with such a distinct voice. He shrugs.

“Well, I just broke up with my girlfriend.”

Why is he telling a stranger this?

She laughs. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Sean shakes his head, “but, like, whatever. I wanted to for ages. And she took it well, so.”

The girl nods, but it looks like she knows a little more than Sean. Like, they’re pantomime characters, and there’s some great, dramatic irony that is forcing the audience to yell at him, to scream in the hopes he can hear them spelling out the answers to everything. The answers this girl, this self-assured girl with purple hair, already knows.

“I’m Cassidy, by the way.” She smiles warmly. A gentle breeze has started to drift across the park. It’s cooler, suddenly.

“Uh, Sean.” He says. And then he smiles back at her.

Suddenly, she claps him on the shoulder, and squeezes tightly. “Don’t worry about your ex, Sean,” she lets go, and starts to trail away in the direction she was headed, “it’s fuckin’ high school. Relationships never last anyway.”

•

Sean keeps on seeing Cassidy around school. She’s a senior, and she almost always has her guitar with her. They’ll smile at each other from across the corridor every now and then.

Jenn hasn’t spoken to Sean properly since they broke up. He thought he wouldn’t be bothered by it, but he was. He cares about her, maybe not in the way she wanted him to, but still. There is a burning, bold piece of Sean that so desperately wants to make sure she is okay.

The stark white lines of the track are the same as ever, but the paint is yellowing in the heat and wear it experiences. Sean is running, again. The red track twists and bends, and in his peripheral vision, he thinks he sees someone. He doesn’t even know who he thinks he sees, but he knows it’s someone new, someone he wants to see. So he turns, and that cementing feeling of trainer soles against ground falls beneath him. Sean doesn’t usually stumble, and he certainly never trips. But, all of a sudden, white lines are streaked with red. It feels like all of the air has been knocked out of Sean’s lungs, and it hurts to breath. The taste of hot, metallic sweat is returning, and the burning contours of the track press against his skin. Shit. Stinging sensations dance all up and down his legs, and Sean is sure he’s scraped his knees. Badly.

It feels like all of this is happening to someone else as the coach tells Sean to go clean up in the changing rooms. Like, he’s experienced astral projection. He’s standing above, somewhere undefined and aimless in the sky, watching on as some body, someone referred to as Sean Diaz, limps away from the field and into the changing rooms. Everything is muffled by a dull buzz. Like hair clippers.

Sean wants to cut his hair. Maybe that will make him feel like himself again. He leaves it slicked back from the shower, as he steps out into the empty corridor. Track practice is over, so he might as well just leave.

“Hey! Sean!”

Cassidy’s voice is instantly recognisable. She’s standing outside a music classroom, guitar strapped over her back, with three other seniors that Sean hasn’t ever really seen before. Another girl and two boys. The girl wears a bomber jacket straight out of the 90s, colour-blocked and made of a material that makes Sean cringe on sight. One of the boys is staggeringly tall, with frosted tips, and the other is noticeably short. With a fucking man-bun. Oh god. 

“Hey,” he waves slightly. If there were any time Sean could not be awkward, he wishes it could’ve been now.

“Shit, what happened to you?” Cassidy asks, staring down at the clumsily applied plasters over his knees. Her grin contorts into an expression of genuine concern. It’s almost motherly. Sean feels deeply embarrassed.

“I, uh, tripped. At track.” But Sean never trips. He wants to add that. Wants everyone to know that he’s good at track. A track star who smokes and fucking wins all his races. Not some incompetent Junior who can’t even run without falling over. He can’t help but shoving a pathetic little, “I never usually, though,” on the end.

The taller guy narrows his eyes. “Weird. Have you heard about the alleged government scheme that track stars are—”

“Penny,” Cassidy thumps her friend on the arm, and he shuts up, “stop. Not everything is a fucking government scheme.”

Penny has a nose ring, and dark, rounded eyes. He looks tired, but he is still managing to smile somehow. He smells pretty badly of weed, too. Though, to be fair, they all reek of it.

“It’s true,” the shorter guy, who has a light dusting of freckles across his nose, and an accent Sean doesn’t recognise, pipes up, “some shit has to be run by, like, the black market.”

This makes the girl with the colour-block jacket roll her eyes. But she still doesn’t say anything, just staying, standing at the back of the group with her arms folded over her chest. 

“Exactly.” Penny says, even though it’s pretty obvious the other guy was just trying to wind up Cassidy. Successfully. A scowl has wound up on her face, brows drawn closely together and mouth twisted down into a harsh line. This just makes him laugh.

“C’mon, Cass,” he grins, “not like we’re embarrassing you in front of your boyfriend.”

That makes Sean feel pretty fucking awkward. And then, he winks at Sean, and it feels as though he’s been let in on some secret, inside joke. It’s stupid, and it shouldn’t mean that much, but it does.

“God, Finn,” Cassidy slaps him on the back of the head lightly, “you’re perverting him already.”

They’re about the same height. Cassidy is stockier, and despite the fact Finn is, under all possible words, short, he has this skinny physique that could almost be described as lanky. He has a septum piercing, and his hair, ginger, is pulled back into a small bun. It’s not that long, though, and baby hairs curl out from his hair tie, framing his face.

They seem so much older. All four of them, at most pushing two years older than him, and yet there is something so wise and all-knowing. It’s not Penny’s dumb conspiracy theories he keeps rattling on about. No. Something else. Something Sean can’t quite figure out.

He doesn’t even mind small talk with them. To be fair, it’s more like big talk; so personal and down to earth and not a single fucking mention of the weather. Talking, like they’ve all known each other for years upon years, years none of them have even lived yet.

The girl in the jacket doesn’t say anything, though. Hannah, her name is Hannah. Sean only knows that because Finn keeps trying to force her to say something. It never goes down well. He feels bad. Like, Cassidy introduces him to her group of friends, and Hannah clearly doesn’t like him.

After about five minutes, he leaves. Says he has to go meet Lyla, which isn’t even true. She was grounded by the Momster for a few days over something dumb— probably coming home and stinking the place up with weed— so she wasn’t waiting for him after track. Sean has to walk home, alone, with stinging knees. He’s starting to wonder if he’s really happy, happy with his friends and his life and the way he’s living it. As his feet patter along the pavement, slow, not like the pace on that red track, he can’t help but wonder if everything was different. If, maybe, in alternate realities, Sean Diaz is doing something. Anything but this.

Junior year sucks ass, and he isn’t sure he really cares about his friends that much. Sure, there’s Lyla. Sean could never leave Lyla. He loves her so fucking much. But everything else is this endless, black cycle of doing shit for nothing. Running. What does he get from running? Smoking. What the fuck does that reward him with? Babysitting. Nothing.

Sean thinks about Cassidy, the girl with the purple hair, with braids and beads and straight bangs and shaved sides. He thinks about her friends. How comfortable and certain they are, how well they know themselves, and how happy they are to be them.

He is so fucking jealous. The extremity of it overwhelms him. Sean is the friend who wants to deescalate every situation ever, and here he is, trying not to cry as he walks home because he wants to fucking cut his hair.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it.

•

“How did that Math paper go?”

Sean doesn’t want to have to tell his dad he flunked it because Jenn is refusing to tutor him anymore. There will be so many layers of disappointment to unwrap, just to reveal, oh, more fucking disappointment. So he shrugs and mumbled something incoherent, hoping to convey that it wasn’t great, but not a total disaster. Hoping to no have to mention Jenn.

“I haven’t seen Jenn in a while,” he pushes, “is it uncool for your girlfriend to tutor you?” He quirks a brow in his jokey-dad way. Tries to put a lighthearted spin on everything. Hopes he can just make Sean fucking happy.

Sean just blurts out, “we broke up,” and hopes he won’t have to say anymore.

“Are you... okay, about that, mijo?”

“Yeah.”

He has to blink a few times, but he gets it out. And he hopes, thinks, prays it’s true. That his dad thinks it is.

Esteban liked Jenn. Sean knows he liked Jenn, because Jenn is sweet and sensible, but not too sensible. She’s cool, but she’s not some actual fucking idiot like Eric is. His dad always, always, always went on about how Jenn must be the perfect daughter, how he wishes he had a girl or two instead of boys, how lucky her parents must be to have her, blah, blah, blah. It was partly to spite Seam, tease him, be the embarrassing dad archetype, but Sean knows his dad was proud, happy, supportive, whatever, of that relationship.

“You sure?” He asks, the tone of his voice suggesting he doesn’t believe Sean whatsoever. To be fair, Sean doesn’t believe himself either.

He nods. Shrugs. Rubs his nose with the back of his hand. And his dad finally drops it.

•

“She’s so fucking hot, Sean. Seriously. I might die,” as melodramatically as possible, Lyla presses Sean’s hand to her forehead, “see? I have a fever. A big, gay fever for this fucking girl.”

Lyla gets crushes easily. Admittedly, none of them are very serious, and nothing ever comes of them because of that. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Sean very rarely gets very serious crushes. He dumbfounded and terrified by romance on every level and is so hopelessly awkward he fails to ever imagine himself in a steady, happy relationship.

(He can’t help thinking about what Cassidy said, either. About how it might be true outside of high school too.)

“In two days time you’ll be telling me how much you’re in love with a different girl.” He says, smirking.

“And?” Lyla grins back at him, resting her head gently on his shoulder. They’re sitting outside his house, in their little spot. Together. Best freakin’ fighters.

In moments like these, Sean feels astronomically happy. His best friend in the entire world is by his side, never, ever leaving him. They’re talking about who the fuck knows what, about crushes and girls and school, and dumb kid stuff. Because they are kids. Sean is sixteen, and Lyla is just seventeen. They don’t really know who they are yet, as individuals, but they have a sense of the entity Sean And Lyla. These two people who have stuck side by side for an eternity, and will continue to do so till the grave. The smile ghosting his lips can’t help but spread, and he laughs at all of Lyla’s terrible jokes. Stupid, silly jokes that hardly make any sense, dumb remarks that make his stomach hurt from laughing so much. Crying, crying with joy, because they’re in love. Best friends, in love, in love in a friend way. A best friend way. All of those sappy and powerful words are circling around Sean’s mind in an endless loop, as Lyla starts to drift off to sleep on his shoulder. He ends up elbowing her awake, and she shrieks in his ear, which only sets them off giggling again.

Sean plays Lyla the song he played her in the park all those weeks ago. The one a plane just had to interrupt. This time, the whole thing plays out as it’s supposed to, and Lyla loves it. She grabs Sean by the hand, pulls him to his feet, and forces him to dance with her to it. It’s certainly not a slow song, but somehow they are waltzing. Sean can’t even dance. Stumbling over Lyla’s feet, he grips her shoulders tightly, and she smiles, laughs, hugs him around the waist and guides him over the wooden decking. It’s stupid. The sun is starting to disappear below the horizon, turning the clouds an orangish-pink hue. The song starts over again, and Lyla leans closely into Sean’s face, grinning, gripping his bicep, flicking hair out of his face.

“Get it cut, boy.” She teases, and he rolls his eyes.

“I’m gonna.”

“Mhmm.” Lyla nods knowingly. Sean is bullshitting her. He so badly wants to cut his hair but he’s too scared to change it.

This lazy, half-hashed waltz continues for what feels like hours and hours. It isn’t. It’s three more minutes of happiness, a song worth of laughter. There isn’t an ounce of romance in this moment, but rather, something far more powerful. The universal experience of friendship.

Best freakin’ fighters.

For everything shitty and confusing and daunting in Sean’s life at the moment, he would give his all to bottle this moment up, and keep it forever.

•

Sean is scouring the school library for a half-decent revision guide to help him out with Math, after school on a Friday. He needs to improve desperately before Senior year, so if he can cram it all in before summer break, he’s laughing. A part of him wishes he hadn’t broken up with Jenn. But, Sean knows that was the right thing to do. That he wouldn’t want to lead someone he cares about on, even if this has hurt her too. Jenn will move on. She’s strong willed. Good and getting over shit. Still sucks she won’t talk to him or tutor him, though.

“Shit, that looks like a heavy read.”

Sean is happy to drag his eyes away from the dull blurb of some book about quadratics, to see Finn in front of him. He’s carrying an alarming amount of dog-eared novels, stacked up in his arms. They all look reasonably classical, though there are a few more recent titles amidst them. The smell of worn paper is overwhelming. Sean hadn’t assumed Finn would be much of a reader.

“Yeah,” he laughs, “um, I’m fucking failing Math. And it’s not like I’ve got a girlfriend to tutor me anymore.”

Sean doesn’t really know Finn very well. He’s met him once, spoken to him for five minutes. But he has the same friendly and approachable energy as Cassidy, and he seems like the type of person who just wants to strike up conversation with whoever. Sean wishes he could do that.

“Oh, boo hoo,” Finn takes the book out of his hands, somehow juggling his own stack at the same time, “dude. Seriously. Just get a new Math tutor.”

“Yeah,” Sean shrugs, “I guess.”

Finn slots the book back in the gap in the shelves that it came from. Then, he shifts his mountain of novels from the one hand back into both.

Fuck it. Sean is gonna be proactive. “You read?” He asks, and it feels weird. But good. Like, change can be good, and not just fucking garbage.

“Yeah,” there’s a sudden twinkle in Finn’s eyes, like this is something he really cares about, “books are like... paintings, but with words. You know? It’s art, it can be interpreted however the fuck you want it to be, it can mean whatever you feel like. Words are so cool.”

Everything he says makes him sound like some giant philosophical pothead. It’s pretty funny. Sweet, maybe.

Sean ends up talking to Finn for a good while about books. One of the books he’s getting out of the library, a crime thriller, is one he’s read before. It’s about a pair of jilted lovers, and some crazy plot in which all of the characters backstab each other. Apparently it’s impossible to really understand what happens, even if you reread it over and over, because the narrator is ‘an unreliable piece of shit’. Finn rambles nonsensically about the book for ages. It’s nice, to listen to him. His accent, this sort of Californian drawl, is so sunny and chipper.

And when he finishes summarising the plot of that book, he goes onto the others. Sean just listens, attentively. He knows every single story so well, and when Sean asks him why he doesn’t read a new book, Finn just grins, and says there’s always something new to spot when you reread something. He says it like it’s some sort of dirty secret that delights him greatly. Like a little foreshadowing you might’ve not picked up on prior is the world’s greatest revelation, some scandalous cover-up, something those who know about it are on some sort of hit list. Enthralled. Finn is absolutely enthralled by the same thing, over and over, and how it changes every time.

“I’m gonna find you a book.” Finn says, suddenly, as if it’s the greatest idea it’s ever had. Sean laughs, like it’s stupid.

“I— I don’t really read, Finn.”

“Bullshit,” he grins, “everyone fucking reads. I’m gonna find you a book to read, and you’re gonna tell me what you think when you’re done with it.”

With that, Finn takes Sean’s hand and drags him down the aisles of shelves, down to the classical literature section. Sean isn’t so sure he’ll enjoy something dated, but Finn is running his index finger along a line of book spikes, clearly searching for something specific. His brow is furrowed, and his mouth is pinched tightly together. Concentrating. Eventually, he seems to spy the book he wants, because he smiles and pulls out a small, thin book with a white cover. A complex pattern of leaves and flowers embellish the front, an earthy green. The title reads Lord of the Flies. Finn thrusts it into Sean’s hands.

“Isn’t this from, like, the 1920s?” Sean asks skeptically. Finn just rolls his eyes.

“It’s short, sweetheart. Besides,” he taps the cover lightly, “I think you’ll like it. I read it the first time in, like, two hours. It’s pretty light, even if it’s old.”

Sean still isn’t sure. Not even convinced at all, to be honest, but Sean does take the book out. He promises Finn he’ll read it. That he genuinely wants to, that he’ll tell him his honest thoughts when he’s finished. Finn seems excited, and Sean doesn’t want to dampen the mood by going on about how he thinks it’ll be shit, and how he doesn’t have the patience for reading. He goes along with it, and by the time Finn is heading his separate way, Sean is almost optimistic about the whole thing.

What?

“Someone’s in a better mood.” Dad remarks, as Sean emerges from his room for dinner. It’s Friday. They’re getting take out. Daniel is bouncing up and down excitedly as he always does on a Friday. Treat day. Cheat day. Depends on how you look at it. Pizza may not be the best take out, but Sean isn’t even complaining. He’s in a good mood, it’s true. He read the first few pages of the book Finn made him take out of the library, and it wasn’t terrible. However, he’s reached his limit for the day, and ended up doodling in his sketchbook instead. Drawing whatever. A girl with purple hair. Planes. A wrinkled old man, curled up with a tome bigger than any other imaginable, his long beard wrapping all around himself, the book and the chair he sat in.

“Yeah.” Sean shrugs, taking a seat at the dining table. It was Daniel’s turn to set it today. His little brother is carrying three stacked plates over, and setting them out in everyone’s respective places. The smell of pizza grease is so nostalgic and comforting. Sean can’t help but smile.

They eat together. Dad, Sean, Daniel. This small, three-person unit that Sean’s life revolves around. Family. Maybe a little incomplete. Maybe, lacking something. There have always only been three people to sit at this table and eat together. Four have never sat down for a meal, four have never crowed around to share good food and equally good conversation, four have never been a family at this table. It’s whatever, though. Sean is sad about it, sure, Sean wishes that he had a mom, but he doesn’t. So. Whatever.

Sitting, talking, telling Dad about his day, explaining why he’s actually reading a book (this detail scared Esteban a little because, apparently, ‘you hate reading’). This actually makes his dad smile a bit. He knows his dad reads a lot, but it’s just never been Sean’s thing. He thinks about what Finn said, about how books paint pictures with words. Seems kinda stupid, in hindsight, when you can just... actually paint a picture.

It’s Sean’s turn to wash up tonight, and Daniel is on drying duty. Their dad disappears downstairs to the garage to finish up a small job. The rhythmic squeak of the tea towel against ceramic fills the silence in the kitchen.

“Sean..?”

“Yeah?”

Whenever Daniel poses a question like this, it means it’s serious. It’s something he doesn’t understand, but wants to, something he’s not so sure if he should understand yet.

“Um,” he hesitates, “there’s a boy in my class who has two moms. Does that mean they’re, like... gay?”

Oh fuck. If there was ever any conversation Sean could not have with Daniel, it’d be this. There’s just something so deeply undesirable about having to explain sexuality to your nine year old brother who thinks all girls have cooties.

Sean sets the plate he’s just finished washing on the drying rack. He bites his bottom lip. Thinks about what to say. How to say it.

“I mean... yeah. Probably.”

“What do you mean?” Daniel asks, picking that same plate up and wrapping the towel around it cautiously, childishly.

“Like,” Sean shrugs, “people can be gay, and like the same gender, or be straight, and like the opposite gender, or they can like both. Or, just not even care about the gender. Some people don’t like anyone at all, in that way, either.”

Nodding slightly, Daniel looks up at him and asks, “who do you like?”

This makes Sean laugh uncomfortably. “Girls,” he says, before adding, “duh.” The next plate clatters onto the rack, making an ugly noise. He’s scared he’s chipped it, but it seems fine after a second of careful inspection.

When Sean was in Eighth grade, Lyla told him she was gay. And that was pretty fucking simple. It was so simple that Sean was jealous, because she said it with this unquestioned authority, like she knew the answer to everything in the universe, like she was God, blessed with all the knowledge in the entire world. Sean has never really known anything about himself, besides what everyone else knows; his mom left, he runs, he draws, he’s pretty indifferent and awkward about most things. He’s best friends with Lyla Park. He skates, and smokes even though he shouldn’t. His music taste is somewhat cool.

And that’s about it. There is no omnipotence, no omniscience about Sean. All of those ideas of self that he has are formulated by others, manufactured to fit amidst his friends.

He kind of hates not knowing who he is.

•

Sean was going to go to the park to skate with his mates today, but his dad had a last minute job, so he and Lyla are sitting in his living room, stuck babysitting Daniel. A part of Sean is glad he doesn’t have to go out. Sometimes shit just seems a bit much. Sometimes he isn’t overly keen on seeing his friends, because he’s tired, or feeling more awkward than usual, or just not in the mood. It’s a mix of the three today, but no matter what, Sean doesn’t mind having Lyla around.

Daniel is in his room, with the door shut, but he’s not deathly silent, so Sean’s pretty sure he hasn’t been horrifically injured somehow. The scrawled and aggressive eyes of the bear stuck over his door seem to be staring him down from across the hallway, some sort of impending doom, a threat, a dare to enter and regret it. Sean is scared that one day, that paper-and-pencil barrier that is so flimsy will become reinforced with the reality that Daniel might not like Sean. That, one day, his brother might hate him.

It’s stupid. It’s irrational. But it feels like a very real fear when Daniel shuts himself away like that.

Lyla is trying to explain some Math thing to Sean, to her very best ability. She’s not as good as Jenn by a long shot, but Lyla isn’t literally failing Math like Sean. As she’s ringing the answer around with her pencil, Sean’s phone buzzes on the coffee table, the screen illuminating with a text notification. Looking up from the Math sheet, Sean reaches out to pick it up, when Lyla swoops it out of his reach.

“Dude. Give it.” He holds his hand out expectantly, hoping Lyla isn’t in a snooping mood. Turns out she is, though.

“Who’s,” she wiggles her eyebrows melodramatically, “Cassidy?”

Sean rolls his eyes, and leans over to snatch his phone out of Lyla’s hand, but she holds it above her head at a position too awkward for him to reach. Pressed into the corner of the couch, Lyla has somehow managed to wedge her arm at an angle Sean can only access if he stands up. Fuck that. She’s smirking. Finding it funny. And it’s just some dumb teasing, and Sean can appreciate that, in fact, he’s usually play along and let her have her way. But this is weirdly, resoundingly different. He doesn’t know why. It just is.

“Tell me who she is, and then I’ll give it back.”

“Just some girl that I know.”

Lyla’s eyes narrow, and she lowers Sean’s phone a little. “Yeah? How’d you meet?”

“Come on, Lyla.” Sighing, Sean actually bothers to get to his feet, walking around the back of the couch to pluck his phone from her hands. He glances over the message from Cassidy, which is some half-hearted joke about whatever they were talking about last night, a late reply. That’s something Sean has learned about Cassidy since they exchanged numbers; she’s quite bad at commitment, at sticking around.

“What?” She smiles, leaning over the back of the couch, “I’m just saying. Lyla the Love Witch can only work her magic if she has the details.” She waggles her fingers aimlessly, as if she’s actually some seventeenth century witch reincarnated, offering to cast a hex that, although deeply, darkly dangerous, could make Sean so much happier. It’s tempting actually. Her dumb offer to help him flirt, when she herself is a hopeless dumbass who’s never been in a relationship.

That’s why Sean finds himself flopping back down into his seat, ready and willing to explain everything. Lyla leans against the arm of the couch and crosses her legs, head lolling slightly as she listens to him talk. About Cassidy, and her purple hair, with straight bangs and shaved sides, and an array of multicoloured beads, and how warm her smile is, her laugh, her accent, the almost motherly way she shows concern. Dumb, small little things he’s picked up on in the past two weeks of knowing her. The advice she gave him, that first day they spoke, only minutes since Jenn walked out of his life for good. And Lyla just nods along, until he’s done. A gracious and fair judge, waiting until every little action has been weighed on the scales.

“Dude,” she laughs, “just ask her out already.”

“Yeah, but,” Sean shrugs, “she’s a senior. And most of her friends are, like...” an image of Hannah, arms folded across her chest, eyebrows drawn tightly together, mouth pulled at a downward angle flashes across his mind, “not... cool, with me?”

And then he stupidly adds, “plus, I’m not even sure I like her.”

That plants the seed. That sows the crop that blossoms into doubt in Lyla’s mind,the oil that makes the cogs behind her eyes click together and whirl, slowly, surely deducing the small, and yet so scary thing Sean has been quietly debating with himself. The uncertainty, the near indifference. Sean is suggesting something catastrophic, something that could be his very undoing.

(What Sean doesn’t know is that when the final note of the crescendo falls, that undoing will be graceful and soft, like the ribbons on ballet flats falling over one another, slipping from their bow to fall limply at either side of the shoe. That undoing will be the single most tender declaration of self he will have ever yet experienced.)

“That’s what you always say.” Lyla states, matter-of-fact. And it’s true. All of the um-ing and ah-ing about crushes is a painfully Sean trait. Most of the time, deep down, Sean can hear a small voice telling him again and again the truth, the definitive answer that, yes, it’s a crush. This isn’t one of those times though, and it scares him, because it is as though all of that sense of self, of What Sean Does When He Has A Crush is slipping between his fingers. What the fuck is happening to him? Who is he? Why does Cassidy seem so utterly vital to him solving these problems?

“Yeah,” Sean looks up at his best friend, hoping she might just understand, “well. I think it’s different this time.”

There is a pause, then, where Sean thinks Lyla has realised what he’s trying to say. That he has no idea who he is and everything is just a little bit too much right now, and frankly, he wants to cut his fucking hair and have a cold shower for four years. Do some soul searching. Whatever. Mould with the bathroom tiles. Become a living, breathing ceramic.

But, Lyla blinks. Shoves him lightly on the shoulder. Laughs lightly and tells him to get over himself, makes an offhand comment about how he’s overthinking, how Sean always overthinks everything.

Lyla is Sean’s best friend. She is one of the only good, the only consistent things in his life, and his treasures her dearly. Without Lyla, Sean wouldn’t sit on the decking outside his house and play songs whilst planes aren’t roaring overhead, wouldn’t dance out there, waltz about in this dizzy concept of nostalgia, something he’s far too young to really experience, and yet feels so familiar with as he and Lyla twirl to songs they’ve not heard until the age they are now. But, and there’s always a but, she isn’t perfect. No one is perfect. Lyla picks at him, like some rotting carcass with remains of little use. Lyla scrutinises him, out of care, out of love, but she does it nonetheless, and sometimes it results in her dismissing what he says. It doesn’t usually get to him— they’re best friends, they rarely have arguments— but at fragile and unstable times like these, he can just imagine himself... snapping. Growing tired of the wiggling eyebrows, the waggling fingers, of Lyla the Love Witch. Lyla, full stop.

Relationships are complicated. It’s stupid and it sucks, but it’s true. You can love someone dearly, endlessly, and they you, but there will always be flaws. Things that make your nose wrinkle up, little details that cause you go cringe and question your benevolence.

But Sean doesn’t tell Lyla any of this, because he feels so hopelessly unable to. They’re having a good time. He’s not really that bothered by these things, things she does all the time. Sean is bothered about Cassidy, and how he doesn’t know who he is. Bothered about having to babysit Daniel and sit here, aimless, ignoring his copy of Lord of the Flies because he finds it boring, and that makes him feel guilty. Ignoring the fact that it makes him feel guilty.

“I just— it hasn’t been long, since, uh, Jenn.” Sean says this like he’s upset, like he has regrets, but he doesn’t. It feels like he lost a friend. Nothing more, nothing less, and he can conquer that. He just needs some sort of excuse to squirm out of this situation.

“Sean. You never even liked her like that.”

“Okay, well, what if I don’t like Cassidy like that?” He snaps.

Lyla just shrugs and ruffles his hair. This makes Sean wrinkle his nose up and brush her off. Softly, gently, yes, but he sees the way the corners of her eyes twist from happy little crinkles into flat and smooth and expressionless skin.

It turns out he’s too tired and awkward, and just not in the mood for Lyla as well.

•

“I’m saving you a seat tonight, yeah?” Lyla asks Sean, during English. It’s second-to-last period, but they have separate classes next, and need to organise this beforehand. Lyla always forgets which days Sean has track, and which days he doesn’t. Which days she has to save him a seat on the bus.

“Yeah.” He nods, and continues to write. The scratch of his pen against paper fills up the void of conversation, bleeding out amidst a sea of scratchy pens.

It’s Wednesday. Sean and Lyla aren’t fighting, but Sean is sad and Lyla is grumpy. Everyone can tell. There is no usual dynamic between them, just stiff interaction after stiff interaction. Lyla hasn’t given any updates on her many crushes since Saturday, so Sean knows he must be hopelessly behind at this point. Neither of them have mentioned Cassidy, either. Her name is like some fucking magic spell, one that unearths all these unsaid feelings and exposes everything for what it is; ugly, and unwanted.

Sean doesn’t want to fight with Lyla. Technically, they aren’t fighting, but they might as well be. He just wants them to be how they’ve always been, wants to cement them in those ways that never failed them. Change is so fucking bullshit.

That’s what he thinks, during second-to-last period. But then change is so suddenly in his face as he’s walking out of school, to the bus, to sit with Lyla, to reconcile.

That instantly recognisable, distinct, thick, Southern accent. Everything, all of the ways that voice has swirled around in Sean’s head and been processed by his mind, is screaming at him to turn around, to look for her. To talk to her.

“Diaz!”

Cassidy runs up to him like a little kid who’s just been let out of pre-school, bounding over to their waiting, expectant parent. She’s grinning, leaning all over him, hand on his shoulder, messing his hair up, bombarding him with a flurry of deeply concerned and thoughtful questions. About him. And how he’s feeling. And then she drops the bombshell.

“D’you wanna come to the park, like, with us?”

Sean looks at her questioningly, because she’s fucking alone. There’s no one with her. It’s just Cassidy, with a guitar case strapped to her back.

She seems to realise this, because she adds, “like, me, Penny, Hannah. Finn’s driving.”

So, somehow, although Sean knows he should be going to sit on the bus with Lyla, although that’s where he knows his loyalty lies, he watches himself— is it even really himself, or just some body people refer to as Sean Diaz?— walk out of the school doors, down towards the student car park with Cassidy. With the girl with the purple hair that he barely knows, and yet somehow, trusts completely. How did this happen to him?

The car park is practically empty, aside one or two cars. None of them are in particularly good condition, which is unsurprising. Not everyone’s dad is a mechanic that’s willing to fix a car up for you. You could spot Hannah, sitting on a car roof, from a mile away, in another painfully 90s outfit. All neon orange and hot pink. She looks just about as grumpy as ever, face seemingly stuck in that stony expression of disdain. Universal disdain. Penny leans against the side of the car, which is an old, mustard yellow Ford Mustang from the 80s. It seems like the kind of car that, despite looking shitty and in terrible condition, is very expensive.

“Where is he?” Cassidy asks, rather pointedly to Hannah. Sean isn’t sure why. It’s not like he really understands the dynamic this small group has anyway. That makes him realise he probably shouldn’t be here, but it feels far too late to back out now.

Hannah snorts. “Fuck knows.”

It seems like that’s the only answer Cassidy will be able to get out of her, because she doesn’t try worm anything else out. She just sort of accepts it.

And then Hannah asks, “why is he here?”

Her question is directed at Cassidy, talking about Sean like he’s not really there. Like they’ve stepped aside for a private conversation, like they’re two parents squabbling over the head of a small child. And Cassidy answers her like it too, as though he’s not even really there. Says he’s just coming along, because why not? That she invited him. Wanted him to hang out with them.

“I mean,” he shrugs, sensing he’s unwanted, “I can leave. If you want.”

“S’cool, Sean.” Penny says, in his almost unbearably calm voice.

Hannah doesn’t say anything.

They wait around for a good ten minutes, as buses clear out and kids walk home. Sean should probably text Lyla, but he doesn’t even think to. He’s too busy talking, listening, to whatever, about whatever. Conversation ranges from Penny’s latest conspiracy to how shitty school is, to Cassidy and Hannah squabbling— like sisters, almost— over stupid and trivial things. It’s nice. Nice to talk to different people about different things. Change is nice, for a change.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Hannah asks, signature scowl on her face as Finn finally shows, walking across the car park calmly.

And Finn has this undisputed, nonchalant air about him, like he floats about on a cloud of simply not caring, not giving enough of a shit about anything. It’s not in a bad way, a burnt out and disloyal way. Finn seems to be one of those people who’s overly friendly, overly attached to his friends, and shameless about it. In fact, that’s a better way to put everything about Finn; completely and utterly shameless. 

He’s grinning, a beacon of light from the fucking heavens almost, with the way he gracefully walks along, arms outstretched, stooping before the car in a low and ceremonious bow. He winks at Hannah, and for a second, the corners of her mouth twitch.

“Sorry Hans,” he says, as he straightens up, “got held back for a lil’ bit.”

This causes Cassidy to whistle lowly through the corner of her mouth. “Ooh, what a bad boy.” She drags every single syllable out far further than you’d think they could be. It sounds good, though. She has a nice voice.

“We’ve been waiting for your ass for, like, hours.” Penny says, half-heartedly, and Hannah actually laughs.

“Dude. It’s been ten fucking minutes.” And with that, Hannah stretches her arms out behind her back, rolls her head, causing the sound of vertebrae clicking together to echo over the car park. It makes Sean cringe. Then, she uncrosses her legs and hops down from the car roof. It shifts under her weight, and pops back up a little.

As Finn unlocks his car, keys jangling in his left hand, he catches Sean’s eye. “You coming along, sweetheart?” He asks. It might be a threat, and from anyone else, Sean would take it as a deeply unwelcoming sentiment, but Finn’s soft voice and small smile morph those words into something else entirely.

Cassidy jumps to her feet, from where she’d been sitting on the tarmac, and grabs Sean by the shoulder. She does that a lot. It’s just always where her hands end up. She smiles at Finn and says, “I invited him.” Which is true. But it feels weird, like two siblings are squabbling at one of their’s birthday party, because of whoever the other’s plus one happens to be.

But Finn just shrugs, and walks around to the right side of the car, pulling both the front and back doors open. Then, he slaps the roof of the car in this ridiculously comic way, like he’s a salesman trying to get the next best trade at his dealership.

“Get in, then.” He says, directed to no one in particular. Hannah looks as if she’s going to sit shotgun, but Finn puts his left arm across the door, and holds his finger up in her face. He’s grinning, like a total fucking idiot, as he says, “sorry Hans.” Then, he moves his finger to point at Sean. “Baby’s first time. You’re going shotgun.”

Suddenly, this feels like some sort of initiation ritual. That idea, of permanence, being accepted into a group, would usually scare Sean. It should scare Sean, because they’re Seniors, because Hannah is... scary, even if she’s cool sometimes. But, for once, change is the least daunting thing to Sean, and he kind of loves it.

“It’s cool,” Sean shrugs at Hannah, “you can sit shotgun.”

That just makes Hannah chuckle to herself, though, and mutter something under her breath. Sean doesn’t catch what she says, but she climbs into the back of the car, sliding along to the furthest seat, before resting her hands behind her head. She shuts her eyes. For once, she looks peaceful.

It takes another five minutes for them to leave after that, because Finn and Cassidy end up having a full blown argument about which CD to listen to. Eventually, though, they’re rumbling down familiar streets, listening to songs Sean hasn’t heard before, yet feels like he knows the words to. It’s a weird feeling. He’s so certain that these melodies are brand new, but at the same time, they feel like they’re riddling his childhood, blasting through the memories in his mind palace.

They drive pretty far out, further than Sean would ever usually go with his own friends. Cassidy said they were going to the park, but Sean assumes she doesn’t mean the one he and Lyla frequent, to smoke, to skate. She means a real park, more than a rectangle of grass with some trees, and a small skatepark. Somewhere slightly more rural, somewhere that actual feels like an escape into nature.

Sitting and smoking. That’s all they do, and it’s all Sean might’ve done with Lyla today, but it’s actually fun for once. Sean doesn’t find himself saying track stars don’t smoke, because being a track star isn’t who he is suddenly. Those newly formed scabs on his knees aren’t a part of his identity. The sun beats down, but the trees are leafy and cast wide shadows that sway softly in the breeze, constantly shifting. Light scatters all around them. They talk.

Penny has a fucking novel’s worth of stories. He could ramble endlessly about anything. Getting high only seems to make him better at it, too. At one point, he starts ranting about reptilians, and how they all have telekinesis, and it’s linked to some grande government scheme designed to cover up unexplained anomalies all over the world— he even lists a few genuinely convincing examples. Sean has to sit back for a second and remind himself it’s total bullshit, because otherwise he might’ve fallen down a four-AM-spiral searching up whatever he could find about it. Hannah talks about all the tattoos she’s going to get over the summer, where they’re going to go, what they’ll mean. She’s so certain in what she wants and why she wants it. The way she talks is so self-assured. She traces her forearms and her face with her finger, illustrating her vision as best as she possibly can. Talks about her family, her tribe, her community, and how she wants to commemorate them.

They don’t really mention school ever. Hannah brings up their graduation, something Sean wishes he could relate to, but that’s about it. Instead, music and film and art flood that void, politics being thrown about here and there. Anecdotes are shared, songs are played, opinions are explained. Everyone listens and waits their turn to speak, and yet there is still room for this lighthearted humour that floats about in the air.

“Have you finished it yet?” Finn asks, suddenly. They’re sitting in a circle, on the dry grass, and Finn is right by Sean’s side, his head lolling against his shoulder. He sounds kinda tired. To be honest, the dashed washes of sunlight are making everyone dozy, paired with the weed.

Sean has absolutely no idea what Finn is talking about. He tells him this, and he laughs.

“I’ll take that as a no then.”

“What?”

Finn yawns softly, stretching his arms out in front of him, before crashing back into his slouched position against Sean. “The book,” he mumbles, “did you finish it yet?”

This makes Sean falter because, no, it’s been five days, and he hasn’t finished Lord of the Flies yet because it’s boring. He feels bad saying that, but he genuinely can’t enjoy it. Some parts were okay, and some of the themes the guy talks about are interesting, but Sean must just really fucking hate old books. He can’t get into it, and he certainly can’t finish it. That seems like some sort of monumental task, a quest for a mediaeval knight to brave, not something a dumb Junior can do. 

“I guess it’s just a bit...” he trails off, unsure how to word it. Unsure how to not hurt Finn’s feelings.

Grinning, he butts in and offers a small, tongue-in-cheek, “boring?”

Which. Yes. It is. Sean doesn’t want to admit that, but he nods and shrugs, and mutters something that vaguely resembles agreement. Then he starts to apologise, make excuses, but Finn just laughs. His hand has found its way to Sean’s knee.

“It’s cool, Sean. Don’t worry,” he grins, “we can always find you somethin’ else.”

There are a few things Sean has noticed about Finn, in a light that isn’t artificial; his freckles are bolder, darker; he has a small, faded scar across the bridge of his nose; his eyes look green from a distance, but when you’re up close, there’s a noticeably large splat of blue in his left one.

See, Sean is an artist. He paints a picture in his mind, and then has to translate that onto paper. To sketch out what is really there, what you can really see, you have to observe every minute detail. Sean wishes he had his sketchbook on him, so he could just sit back, out of frame, and immortalise this moment in the pages. Cassidy, tuning her guitar, the trees looming peacefully overhead, Hannah, in all of her wonderfully colour-block, shapeless clothing, Penny’s staggeringly long legs that would just be so fun to draw, the smoke curling up into the sky, dotted wildflowers and a scattered line of birds up in the sky, Finn, just sitting back. As if, nothing outside of these trees exist, as if the entire world, with all of its bullshit, is some other universe entirely. This clearing, these trees, are home, and the only home that matters. A new society of five people, who don’t need any more or any less than is right here. Somewhere down that train of thought, Sean’s observant vision in his mind shifts, into some drawing fantastical and other-worldly. A sanctuary, a safe haven. That is this place, with these people.

Cassidy plays them all a song, on her guitar. She sings in this soft voice, not like she’s too shy to project her voice, but rather, she’s mumbling the words, letting them roll into one another, all of the syllables bleeding together. It sounds distinct, and it sounds like her. That thick, Southern accent creeps through. The guitar strings make gentle music, plucked with cautious and yet quick fingers. The gentle breeze rushing through the trees is the only other noise in the world, besides this song. A song Sean doesn’t know, a song Sean thinks might be original. Sean wants to bottle it up and share it to the world, for everyone to hear just how beautiful it is. But it’s not his to share, and there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to whatsoever. This is a sanctuary because it is safe, protected from everyone else.

He doesn’t want to leave it, when the time comes. The sun is setting. What’s the time?

They drive back. Finn drops Hannah off outside her house first. As she gets out, she says something about seeing them all tomorrow. There’s a ghost of a smile on her face. They drive a little longer, and then stop for Penny. He makes a big show of getting out of the car, but eventually, they’re pulling away from the curb all over again. So, it’s just the three of them. Finn, Cass, Sean. Cassidy is sat on the hump, leaning over into the front with her elbows rested on the chairs either side of her. Music is softly playing from the car radio. The sun is rapidly diminishing below the horizon line, as they drive further into the residential area.

And then, the night suddenly comes to a crashing end. Finn pulls up outside Sean’s house, and he realises this is goodbye. Only for tonight, but still. He misses that feeling, that indescribable feeling he felt hidden away in the trees already.

“See you tomorrow, city boy.” Cassidy’s hand is on his shoulder again, for one last time before he climbs out of the car.

And Finn says, “bye, sweetie,” as he shuts the door.

He waves them off as Finn pulls away, before turning on his heel to walk up his drive. As he approaches the door, Sean pulls his phone out of his back pocket to see how many texts Lyla has sent him since he silenced his phone on the way to the real park. The sanctuary. He’s surprised to see messages from his dad too, until he looks at the time. It’s half past nine. Fuck. Shit.

As he unlocks the door, and walks inside, his dad only poses one, single question to him.

“Who were you with?”

Esteban’s tone is perfectly calm. But Sean knows he’s disappointed. Sean knows his dad is disappointed, because he’s come home late, and he probably reeks of weed, and he got out of a car his dad won’t recognise.

“Uh...” Sean falters. He doesn’t want to cry right now, but he feels like he might. He actually enjoyed himself for once, and the repercussions for that are going to be catastrophic.

“Just tell me, mijo.”

But Sean thinks about bottling up Cassidy’s song and spiking the world’s water supply with it, spreading it through the universe like some sweet, sweet sickness. And he thinks about how he won’t do that, because he wants to keep that place, hidden between the trees, a secret. So he tells his dad he was out with some friends, with a girl in Senior year and her friends, and that they’re good friends. That he doesn’t have anything to worry about. He doesn’t tell Esteban where they were or what they were doing, and he doesn’t ask.

He just says, “at least you’re back in one piece.”

•

“What the fuck, Sean?”

Lyla wants to know where Sean was last night. Fair enough, really. He never texted her back after he got home. Couldn’t be bothered. Didn’t feel like it.

And right now, Sean doesn’t feel like talking to her either.

Who the fuck even is he? Why does Lyla care so much about a person that fundamentally does not exist, some husk of a human, completely void of personality? What is so important about Sean Diaz, some random fucking kid who literally, in the grand scheme of things, means nothing. Right now, he’s a Junior track star, an art student, and shitty at Math, but the second he graduates, those labels are meaningless. The second Sean isn’t dictated by high school cliques, he is simply a name with little, if even any interest to him.

“I saved a seat for you, even though this girl asked to sit next to me, and, like, I was gonna say yeah, until I remembered I was saving that seat for you. So I told her that, and she walked off, when I could’ve totally flirted with her if you just sent me a fucking text,” Lyla says, “and then you don’t show up! So, she probably thinks I’m a liar, and that I secretly hate her. Nice one, best friend.”

She looks so, so hurt. Sean knows it’s about more than one of her many crushes. He also knows Lyla would never admit that.

So, with every ounce of his pathetic being, he musters up the energy to tell her he was with Cassidy. He’s equivocating, sure, but there’s no harm in that. The mention of her name makes Lyla smile softly. She punches Sean lightly in the arm like they weren’t just fighting two seconds ago.

“Get it, Diaz. Guess you don’t need Lyla the Love Witch after all.”

She laughs at this, like it’s the most hilarious thing anyone’s ever said. Then, she shuts her locker abruptly. It makes a few heads in the school corridor turn towards them, and Lyla swallows hard. Her eyes dart around nervously, before she looks back at Sean and says, “see you at lunch.”

And then she leaves.

•

Practice is the same as it always is. Curving around that final bend of the track, heart threatening to hammer out of Sean’s chest and just rupture the stability of everything. He’s sweating. Of course he’s sweating. It’s too hot for this. There are two and a half weeks of school left, they are on the verge of summer. This teetering balancing act, between the want to stay and keep everything as it is, and running the fuck away, because school just sucks so hard. Lyla barely spoke to Sean during lunch today, and he can’t blame her. Still hurt. Still made him feel like shit.

He should apologise. He doesn’t want to apologise.

Sean was late to track today, because his Math teacher held him back for a chat about his recent grades. They’re bad. Obviously. She asked him if Jenn was still tutoring him, and he said no. She told him to get a new tutor, which reminded Sean of something. Can’t remember what. Then, she started poking around a little bit more than she really should, asking if he was okay, how he was doing in other subjects, blah blah blah. All of these horrible questions that make Sean feel hopelessly uncomfortable, questions that make that dry lump form in his throat, like he’s about to throw up, or cry, or both.

He told her he was fine, and that he had to go to track practice. So that’s what he did.

Maybe Sean is running from his problems? Oh God. Oh shit. Once he’s come to a standstill he realises he could just keep on running, he realises he would race against himself, shoes slapping against tarmac, until he reaches that safe haven, the sanctuary. He could just run away from everything and hide between the trees forever. That permanence, feeling that feeling forever and never experiencing a change in it, is something he wants. 

“Sean!”

It’s getting a bit ridiculous at this point. Sean doesn’t think he believes in God, not really, but he’s starting to be swayed. Every single time he starts to spiral, Cassidy is there, like some fucking guardian angel. Cosmic bullshit is cosmic bullshit, but there must be some divine reason, some overarching destiny that caused the two of them to meet in the park, only minutes after he dumped Jenn.

Her head of purple hair is poking out from between the bleachers, and she’s grinning crookedly.

“Cass,” he laughs, through a laboured breath, “what’re you doing?”

“Uh, waiting until your club finishes to be teen delinquents.” She says, as bluntly as possible, before throwing in a small, hopeful, “wanna join us?”

He swallows, and bites his bottom lip. That memory of four faceless seniors at his last race suddenly makes sense, like the pieces of a puzzle clicking together. Then, he nods, and says sure. Cass tells him he stinks, and he says he’s gonna go shower. So that’s what he does, with a simple promise that he’ll return as soon a possible.

They talk, and smoke. The five of them, cramped under the bleachers, passing around joints. It isn’t the sanctuary. It isn’t the safety, the warmth, the security Sean felt caught amidst those trees, but it’s close. Like, the veil between God and earth is the thinnest in this very spot, squished between Cassidy, the girl with purple hair, and Penny, who is reeling about something, someone, in a sporadic and stoned ramble of love.

It’s actually really nice, to listen to him talk about it. Being in love. And as he does, Hannah, who hasn’t scowled once the whole afternoon, rests her head on Finn’s shoulder, and he wraps his arm around her middle.

Cassidy’s hand is on his shoulder again. It’s grounding. The sensation of her fingers and thumb and palm, not as soft as you’d imagine, all squeezing and curving around Sean’s shoulder is nice. Maybe Lyla is right.

Gross. Don’t want to think about her, and everything that’s happened between them.

Sean wants to live in this moment forever, forever, forever, forever. He wants to hear Penny describe every single inch of this boy, a boy Sean will never meet. He wants to hear him talk about how they met and how they fell in love, starstruck, moonlit, like the movies. It makes him feel like there is so much more to life, beyond petty high school drama and jilted school sweethearts. What Cassidy said, on that park bench what feels like millenniums ago now, comes back to him. God, in that time whole galaxies have formed and thrived and withered and died. Sean still feels like the same, average person, sure, but at least he’s happy.

Happy, sitting here, squished between Penny and Cassidy.

•

The loop is back again. A reel of film, replaying the same moments over and over. This time, though, it starts with a girl, with purple hair, smiling; an old Ford Mustang turning down his street; smoke spiralling and curling up into the trees; a signature scowl; the thumbing of an ancient, crumpled book. Over and over.

“Just try it,” Finn says, handing him another book. Complicity by Iain Banks. Sean already knows he won’t finish it, but he doesn’t care. The books are never as good as Finn’s rambling summaries he shares with him, in the library, every Friday. They’re sitting at one of the communal tables near the mystery and thriller section. Sean is resting his head in his hands, tilted to one side, half-listening to his friend speak. Mostly, though, he’s just watching. The sun is shining through the windows opposite them, a blazing and yellow cascade of warm light. He’s pretty tired. Finn doesn’t seem to be, though, his hands punctuating each and every one of his words.

Today was the last day of school. It’s technically summer break now, and Eric is throwing a house party. Sean isn’t going, though. He hasn’t really spoken to Lyla that much recently.

“Shit, is this my summer reading task?” Sean asks, and Finn laughs a laugh that is verging on menacing.

“Fuck no,” he shakes his head, “I was thinking, like, one book per week?”

Sean scoffs, and tells him that’ll never happen. Finn just shrugs and says something— something that, honestly, Sean wants to keep for himself only— as his clumsy eyes tripping over from the ceiling, to the floor, to him.

“You need a haircut,” Cassidy insists, as they sit in the sanctuary, an hour or so later, “new year, new you. Whatever.”

Sean’s hair is pretty shaggy, to be fair. He kinda likes it. Kinda wants to change it, too.

“Oh my God, Cass,” Hannah rolls her eyes and takes a drag from her joint, “it’s the start of summer fucking break.” As she says that, her eyes widen, presumably in the realisation she isn’t on summer break. She’s done, forever.

“I still think city boy should cut his hair,” she says, winking at Sean. He laughs, and brushes a few strands out of his eyes. “You know,” she continues, “get a fresh look for Senior year.”

“Oooh,” Finn smirks, “because it’s such a big deal.”

“Dude, you were all about the sappy shit at graduation.” Penny says to him, before proceeding to elaborate, over-explain every mushy gesture Finn made on their last day of high school. It’s a rather lengthy ramble, but no one really minds. Here, everyone listens. There’s no fighting for the bit, for the position of importance. Here, amongst the trees, everyone is exactly the same, and they all take in each others’ stories with balance. Hannah talks nonsensically about how fucking bullshit high school was, about how college funds are ridiculous, and people listen. Penny monologues about how, now they’ve graduated, he’s going to try and find a friend he lost a long time ago, and people listen. Finn shares his thoughts on a book none of them have ever read, and people listen. Cassidy goes on and on and on about Sean’s hair, and people listen.

And when Sean finally feels it’s his turn to speak, he has something. He tells them that he’s scared of change, that he feels like everything is going to fucking fail, that he’s really tired of just doing what he’s always done, how none of it makes sense and that he wants to cut his hair. That’s the definitive point.

The hair has to go.

•

“Oh.”

That’s what Sean’s dad says, when he gets home. Before dark. Before Daniel has gone to bed.

Finn did it. The five of them went back to his place, whilst all of his brothers were out, and Finn cut Sean’s hair. Cassidy certainly approved. There was a surprising amount of hair on the floor around him afterwards, actually. It probably makes sense, considering the haircut he received; not some pathetic trim, but rather, a sort of floppy mohawk that made Sean feel undeniably cool. That same kind of cool he felt when he saw Cassidy’s hair for the first time.

There is absolutely no emotion in Esteban’s voice or face. He asks, “who did it?” and Sean tells him a friend did. That answer feels wholeheartedly wrong, though, later that night, when everyone else in the house is asleep, and Sean is stumbling into the bathroom to clean his teeth, shower and... stuff.

Stuff. Ha. Is he twelve? This feels like the kind of shit a twelve year old goes through. Most twelve year olds certainly know themselves better than Sean does.

As he curls up in bed that night, hair finally off of the nape of his neck, Sean cannot sleep. He sinks through his mattress and into this void, a place so far from his sanctuary that he can barely remember how it feels to be safe. There are no trees, and there is no smoke. Instead, there is this looping insistence, a feeling of guilt, the sensation of his insides knotting together over and over, warmth pooling in his abdomen. What terrifies Sean the most though, is that moments of sanctuary are bleeding into the void. Those ugly parts of his mind are wrapped up in a hand on his shoulder and Friday afternoons.

Shit.

•

“How did you and your ex get together?”

Sean is in a 7/11 with Hannah. They’re buying snacks for everyone, for a night out, when she poses the question.

“Uh, I got bullied into asking her out?” He offers, which is true. Not like Sean really wants to tell Hannah about Lyla, because that wound seems like it may never heal. But, still. She pushed him until he finally had the balls to talk to Jenn.

Hannah nods slowly. “So, did you ever pick up that she liked you?”

“Not really.” He admits.

Sean would say that, out of everyone in his new little group, he is the least close to Hannah. She’s scary. As the eldest, she has this matured and wizened world view, and a resting bitch face to smite the gods with. Yes, she’s funny and caring too, but it’s so rare to see that side of her. Sean has always felt as though she’s just a bit cold with him generally, in comparison to everyone else. Cass, Finn and Penny are all probably overly friendly, but for where they perhaps deliver too much, Hannah is severely lacking. So, basically, he has no fucking clue why she’s talking to him about romance.

They’re standing in the crisp aisle. Hannah picks up two different bags, weighs them up in each hand, before deciding on one. She doesn’t consult Sean, just sets the rejected bag back down, as if they’ve discussed her choice of crisps deeply and thoughtfully, as if they’ve come to a mutual agreement about it.

“You know, Cassidy’s having a really shitty time right now.” She says, still staring at her selected bag of crisps.

Sean’s mouth has gone very dry.

“Her dad fucking sucks,” Hannah continues, perfectly monotone, “and her brother is like a carbon copy of him. Both of them are racist shits that couldn’t care less about Cass, and her mom is too cowardly to speak up about it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. ‘Oh.’” Hannah says, as if, for once, she’s agreeing with Sean. She looks up from the bag of crisps, and shoves it into his chest. Hard. Still, she won’t make eye contact with Sean, and as he takes the bag from her, and she steps back, she mumbles, “don’t... don’t expect too much from her.”

In this moment, Sean feels a pang of dislike for Hannah.

Cassidy might be a little bit messy. She likes to get her way, and gets pretty fucking angry if she doesn’t. She’s not the brightest. Sometimes, Sean thinks there is just wholly too much of Cassidy. However, she is dedicated and loyal, and Sean can imagine them growing old together, in the sanctuary. She came up to him on that day, on that bench in the park, and spoke to him. His guardian angel, sent down from heaven to ensure he didn’t completely lose himself to whatever bullshit has been plaguing himself recently. Sean understands that Hannah is saying that if he gets over attached, he’ll only be disappointed, but he knows he won’t be. How could he be? Sean doesn’t make friends with people who will leave him, because he’s wise to that stuff. Fool me once, shame on you, and all that shit.

They pay for the food, which the cashier loads into a blue carrier bag. Hannah doesn’t swing it by her side as they walk to the park to meet the others. It’s dark out, but still humid. The glorious summer time. Fucking muggy air filled with midges wanting to suck the life out of you.

“So,” Sean says, “how did you meet the others?”

Hannah shrugs. “I met Finn in Junior year through some mutual friends. He’d, uh, he hadn’t been in school since Eighth grade. We just clicked, you know? He’s a fucking moron sometimes, but he’s an old soul really. And then we met Cassidy, who was,” she laughs, “literally the most bitter person I’d ever met. Coming from me. But, she softened up around us. Actually wanted to commit to us. Then we ran into Penny at some random party, and we... we became a family.”

“A family?” Sean asks. He thinks about his family. A table with three people seated around it, always a gaping and empty space for a fourth. Family is so much more than just friends, surely?

Hannah stops walking, suddenly. She turns to Sean, and she says, “yeah.”

She has somehow never sounded so scary.

“They’re my family, because they need me and I need them. Because we understand each other, because we talk and listen and actually share our fucking feelings,” she takes a step closer to Sean, “and, that’s something you don’t do. Or, at least, I don’t think you do.”

“What do you mean?” Sean asks, feeling the same feeling he felt back in the 7/11.

“Who the fuck even are you, Sean? Are you really just going to spend the rest of your life being the fucking city boy Cassidy drags into her friendship group again and again?”

That scares him. He doesn’t want to think about how true it is. Can’t. Won’t. Instead, Sean asks Hannah what her problem with him is, because she’s clearly had one since they first met. This is apparently funny to her, because she full-on cackles when he asks it, throwing her head back and crinkling her eyes up.

“I don’t have a problem with you. Jesus, if I hated you, you’d know,” she sniffs, and recomposes herself, “I just wanna look out for my family. I’m being blunt and nosy. That’s what I do.” She actually smiles, ever so slightly, and puts her hand on Sean’s shoulder. “Seriously. You’re not that bad. A little unsure of yourself, maybe, but that’s easily fixed.”

Is it?

“Now, c’mon,” she starts to walk again, “Penny is gonna scarf all of this in, like, two seconds flat.”

•

There is a hard and steady knock at Sean’s door that feels like impending and certain doom. It’s mid-afternoon, two days since his night out. Everything felt a little weird after what Hannah said to him, and it wasn’t as perfect as it’s been every time before. Like, the introduction of conflict had ruined the sanctuary permanently for Sean. Like, it was just the same shit as his old group.

That’s when he made the decision to invite Lyla over. To talk. To talk for the first time in many weeks, and, to actually, genuinely reconcile.

This time, he can be bothered.

He unlocks the door, fingers curling around the handle, pondering if... if he should really open it. Sean takes a deep breath, and turns it, pulling the door open. It feels like he hasn’t even done it. There isn’t any real consequence for that action, that choice, just Lyla. Standing on his front step, without a smile. Sean highly doubts she walked here backwards.

“Hey.” He says.

“Hi.” She echoes.

Stepping aside, Sean lets his best friend inside his house once more. Dad is working. Daniel is at Noah’s house. He has the place to himself, to be authentic, to talk to Lyla unfiltered and try to explain why he has been the world’s lousiest excuse for a friend. A fighter.

They sit on the couch together. Lyla crosses her legs and slouches, and Sean sits hunched over, with his hands clasped together over his lap. It is horribly tense.

“I’m sorry.” He says, as coherently as possible.

Lyla blinks. “Is that it?”

“No,” he hesitates, “I just... there’s a lot of shit going on. I’m not making excuses. I’ve genuinely been the shittiest friend, and I’m so, so sorry. You don’t deserve to be treated like that, but I did it anyway because I thought my feelings were more important.”

She doesn’t say anything, when he pauses, so Sean just continues. “I just got really bored. Or maybe, like, depressed. I don’t know. And I took it out on you, even though you’re my best friend, even though you’ve been there since, like, forever, even though no one could ever be as good as you. I...” God, he wants to cringe, “I had a chance to do something different, for once. I shouldn’t have started hanging out with Cassidy as much. It just felt so much better, because there was no drama and conflict at first. But, fucking obviously, nothing is perfect.”

Lyla just stares at him.

“I’m sorry. I really, really am,” he insists, “and you don’t have to forgive me. But I hope you do. You’re, like, not just my friend. You’re family.”

And then he’s done. He’s said his piece. He just has to sit and wait for the one-person jury to make their judgement. The cogs behind Layla’s eyes are turning, clicking, processing that information and trying to form it into a comprehensible cube. Something Lyla can understand. She was always good at that, at being empathetic.

She nods, and sniffs, and then she says, “you’re a dick.”

Then, she says, “I forgive you.”

After that small declaration, they talk in quiet voices, and share fragile facts about their lives without one another. Lyla tells Sean about her mom, about her sleeping problems, all of that stuff they don’t always address because it’s pretty scary. Sean wants to play that song they had danced to together again, but he knows now isn’t the time. He feels safe. Like, this is now the sanctuary. Not because things are perfect, but because they’re better, enlightened.

“God, you must really like this girl, then? If you nearly fucked our friendship up for her?” Lyla teases, giving Sean a gentle push on the shoulder.

“Fuck off,” he rolls his eyes, “too soon, dude.”

“So,” raising her eyebrows, Lyla sits back, resuming that comfortable position she always used to on Sean’s couch, “what shit have you gotten up to recently?”

Sean shrugs. “Not much.”

“Really?” Lyla laughs. “No exciting, like, parties? Nothing?”

“Well, I guess I’ve been thinking about shit, instead of doing it.”

This makes Lyla make a moderately scandalised and highly sarcastic noise. She grins. “Oooh. Like what?”

Sean knows that Lyla is expecting some sort of gossip, like they’re still little kids, about his crush. Whoever the fuck that is. They’re supposed to be how they’ve always been. That’s the entire reason Sean asked Lyla to come here, to cross the border, repair the relationship, fucking reconcile. But, and this is a pretty big ‘but’ that Sean has barely thought through, there is something he wants to say. Something he has spent the smallest amount of time thinking about. Something Sean hasn’t honestly even processed as he says it to the one person he trusts most in the world.

“I think I’m bi.”

Sean has never really known anything about himself, besides what everyone else knows; his mom left, he runs, he draws, he’s pretty indifferent and awkward about most things. He’s best friends with Lyla Park. He skates, and smokes even though he shouldn’t. His music taste is somewhat cool.

Sean Diaz has always been jealous of people who seem to know everything about themselves. Of people who are so relaxed, so open, so shamelessly themselves. Sean is so wrapped up in trying to figure that shit out that he doesn’t seem to see what is so evidently laying right there before him.

This moment is the beginning of his undoing. Those tightly knotted ribbons are being pulled, slowly, softly, that bow starting to shrivel ever so slightly.

Lyla doesn’t say anything at first. She just pulls him into a hug. A proper hug, where she loops her arms around his neck, pulls him so close that there is certainly no space between them for Jesus, and lets him bury his face in her shoulder. His arms wrap around her middle, and she squeezes him tightly. There is nowhere, as Sean hears a plane soar overhead, he’d rather be.

“Shit, Sean. You know you can tell me about that kinda stuff. You don’t have to sit on it like that.” Lyla breathes.

“I— I wasn’t.” He shrugs, “I only really thought about it in, like, the last day.”

This makes Lyla pull away from the hug almost immediately. She gives him a weird look, like what he just said was super abnormal.

“What?” She laughs. “You suddenly just realised ‘oh shit, I like dick too,’ like that?”

“... yeah?” Sean smiles awkwardly, and Lyla just continues to laugh.

“Fuck off, man! It took me, like, two whole years to figure out I don’t just think girls are kinda pretty in a non-romantic way.”

Then, she barrels him into another hug, and mumbles... something. About having the courage to exist, maybe? Sean doesn’t really hear it properly, but he appreciates it. They just stay like that, embraced, in silence, for a good while. By the time Sean’s dad comes back with Daniel (and pizza), he and Lyla are curled up together, watching Brooklyn-99. Just like old times. Nothing has changed, nothing about their perceptions of one another. No, all that has changed is that they are as in love with each other as they ever were, and they are themselves.

“Lyla!”

Daniel seems happy she’s back, too. He starts to show her an assortment of sweet, childish crafts he’s made over the past few weeks, and Lyla studies them with a fascination that is anything but feigned. She was always good with Daniel, better than Sean could ever be. Esteban doesn’t say anything to Sean, but he gives him a knowing look. He looks tired, sure, but his smile is warm, and for the first time in a little while, Sean doesn’t feel like a miserable disappointment. Because he did the right thing.

He chose his best freakin’ fighter.

Because Daniel is just so fucking clingy, Lyla ends up staying way later than anticipated. That’s when she decides ‘fuck it,’ and texts her mom saying she’s staying the night.

“The Momster is cool with it?” Esteban, who is standing in the doorway of Sean’s room, asks her, just to be sure. Lyla’s mom is pretty fucking strict, and Sean knows his dad doesn’t like to be on her bad side.

“Totally.” Lyla nods, which seems to relax him. She’s right, actually. Dad fucking loves Lyla. Almost as much as Sean does.

“Okay then,” he smiles, “have a good night, kids. Stay up as late as you want, but don’t make a row. Some of us aren’t on summer break.” And with that, he pulls the door ajar, and heads down to his own bedroom.

Lyla borrows one of Sean’s sweatshirts to sleep in. She pulls it up over her nose and takes a deep, comical breath in, as if she’s trying to fucking snort it. Then, she wiggles her eyebrows and says, “when bae gives you his sweatshirt,” in a high pitched and whiny voice. Sean flips her off.

“God, you’re annoying.”

This makes Lyla cackle, as she flops over onto Sean’s bed next to him. She turns from her back onto her side, tucking her elbow under her head as a makeshift pillow.

“I like your hair,” she says, “it’s cool.”

“Yeah,” Sean agrees, and then, because of some unexplainable reason, he adds, “Finn did it.”

“I don’t fucking know who Finn is, mate.” Lyla snorts.

So, Sean winds up telling Lyla about Cassidy’s friends. All three of them. He tells her about Penny, and how he could turn literally anything into a conspiracy theory, about Finn, gesturing over to the towering stack of books on his desk. He tells her about Hannah, and their weird conversation the other night. This peaks Lyla’s interest.

“Think that means Cassidy likes you,” she says, grinning, “and Hannah’s giving you the Dad Talk.”

That thought makes Sean genuinely lose his shit. He’s not sure why. It just seems really fucking funny to him that Cassidy would like Sean like that. Maybe because Sean is pretty sure he doesn’t like her like that, maybe because the thought of Hannah giving a Dad Talk to anyone is just... ridiculous. Whatever it is, it’s comedy gold, and he just can’t stop laughing about it. His ribs ache, and his stomach is sore. It feels like it’s always felt at his and Lyla’s sleepovers; giggly, and nostalgic, and gossipy.

Fuck, he’s missed her.

•

Sean is woken up by a voice. A muffled, and yet distinct, instantly recognisable voice. Shooting up from his bed, and consequently waking up Lyla, who had her arm wrapped around him, he reaches over his bedside table for his phone. It’s eleven AM. Dad will already be at work. Shit, fuck. He and Lyla stayed up until, like, five AM, and he’s so fucking tired.

It’s at this moment that Sean remembers he was going to the sanctuary today. And that Finn was going to pick him up around eleven in the morning. And that he was supposed to take Daniel to Noah’s before that. Shit.

And then, as if this morning couldn’t get any worse, Daniel opens up his bedroom door and says, “Sean, there’s a girl and a boy at the front door and they both have really cool hair, and they want you.”

Lyla genuinely hisses as Sean draws the curtains, even though warm, yellowy light was already filling the room when they woke up. He’s in a flurry of panic. Daniel is hanging off of the door handle, asking too many questions, being nosy and invasive and a really annoying little shit.

“Who are they?”

“My friends.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“Oh. Are you dating that girl?”

This makes Lyla cackle, as she brushes her hair. Sean can’t answer Daniel, because he’s currently, and fervently brushing his teeth. In about three minutes flat, both Sean and Lyla are dressed and kind of clean. Unfed, unwatered and having not showered, sure, but presentable. Just about. Then, Sean pushes past Daniel and walks up to the front door (which Daniel just left wide open— fucking genius) where Cass and Finn are waiting. Lyla trails behind him nosily, peering over his shoulder, and Sean can hear the patter of Daniel’s bare feet as he also follows. Fuck.

Cassidy grins at him. “Alright, Diaz?”

“Uh,” Sean’s brain genuinely cant function right now, “yeah. Shit. Sorry. I kinda... forgot. About today.”

“No stress, sweetie.” Finn looks mildly amused. To be fair, Sean is kind of a total moron, and he bets he looks it right now too.

When no one says anything for a second or two, Lyla takes the opportunity to butt in, squeezing into the doorway next to Sean so she can introduce herself.

“Hi, I’m Lyla, the single most important person in Sean’s life.” She says smugly, and yet somehow it doesn’t come across as astronomically arrogant. More, embarrassing for Sean. God, everything about this makes him want to be swallowed up by the floor.

“Uh, I kinda have some shit to do still this morning,” Sean says, which is true, because his schedule is far too packed right now, “so do you guys wanna... come in?”

“What the fuck, Sean?” Lyla whispers, once she and Sean are in the bathroom and out of ear shot of his other friends. “Cassidy is fucking fit. You actually have taste.”

“Shut up,” Sean mumbles, “can you do me a massive favour and take Daniel to his friend’s house on your way home? He knows the address.”

She grins. “Why, of course I’ll escort my husband to his play date.”

This makes Sean laugh a little, and he pulls into a hug. “Thank you.”

“Now go flirt with your girlfriend.” She teases, and pats him on the back.

•

“So,” Cassidy starts, leaning over the gap between the front seats of Finn’s car. They’ve been driving for five minutes. “Is Lyla your girlfriend?”

“No.” Sean says, like it’s the most insane thing anyone has ever said. “We’re just friends.”

Finn snorts. “Ooh, did you guys hook up?”

“No,” Sean laughs, “Jesus fucking Christ.”

All three of them burst into hopeless giggles. There’s no real reason why it’s so funny. Sean is way too sleep deprived to function right now. He’s just laughing, laughing because he can, laughing because this is the beginning of something new.Sean is starting to dabble in omniscience, of the self.

“Your brother is so fucking cute, by the way.” Cassidy says, which sets Sean off again. Daniel is a hell child who deserves no praise from anyone. 

When they stop outside Hannah’s house, and she’s climbs inside the car to their hysterics, she asks in the calmest voice Sean has ever heard, “okay, who’s fucking who?”

And it’s stupid. They’re stupid. They’re a bunch of Eighth graders laughing at the number sixty-nine in a Math class, but Sean doesn’t even fucking care, because he’s having a good time with his friends. And it’s not perfect. Once they’ve picked Penny up and driven to the sanctuary, Sean can observe it properly. Those fantastical and faerie-like trees are wrinkled and dying in the blistering sun. The ground is littered with things that don’t belong to the natural world, remnants of family picnics and cigarette butts galore. The sanctuary is not some sort of magical place, hidden away from everyone else, but rather, somewhere peaceful that stores good memories. That is rare.

•

The Perks of Being a Wallflower sits idly in front of Sean on the library table. He got about halfway through Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde before giving up, and before he swaps it for his next dumb reason task, he’s listening to Finn waffle about yet another book he’ll never finish.

“Okay, but it’s a gay book.”

This makes Sean laugh.

“Why’re you laughing?” Finn asks, laughing. “Seriously. Utterson and Jekyll were lovers, there have been fucking academic papers written on this shit.”

It’s just really funny to Sean that Finn is trying to convince him about this. He barely got up to the fifth chapter, and all he remembers from the book was that the narrator was fucking boring. There is something about listening to Finn talk about his ideas, his thoughts on a book that is cathartic. Sometimes, Sean genuinely wants to finish a book, but just can’t find it in him, and Finn just explains it. Summarises it. Makes it a wholly better experience than just reading the words on a page. Finn is a poet, and the way he tells the stories are always so much better.

“You should’ve written all these fucking books.” Sean says, suddenly, thumbing the corners of one of them, “I mean, you know them so well anyway.”

Finn just shakes his head. “I’m not, like, a writer. Not really.”

“But you’re good.” As he insists this, Sean realises he sounds like some patronising grandparent. Gross.

“I’m good at explaining shit to you, yeah,” Finn says, modest as ever. It’s almost infuriating, that he refuses to accept he’s good at it. Words. Stuff that Sean is so hopelessly bad with.

“I can’t write for shit. Seriously, you have actual talent.”

“Okay, but I can’t draw for shit, and I think your art is, like,” he draws his hand up above his head, holding it flat, “Mona Lisa tier. You just don’t know what makes good writing because I’ve never forced you to read a shitty book.”

“No?” Sean grins, “I could’ve sworn some of them were hot garbage.”

They just sit and talk, for what feels like hours. It’s not, not really. Sean asks about Finn’s hair (he’s dyed the ends powder blue— it looks nice, actually) and Finn tells some random anecdote about one of his brothers. There is a weird, unplaceable feeling floating about. Sean can’t figure out if it’s settling in his stomach, or somewhere else entirely, but it is there, and he can’t really ignore it.

Later, Finn offers to drive Sean home, like he always does after their little Friday book club, and for once, Sean says yes. He sits in shotgun, like he usually does. Only, this time, it’s just them. Finn’s car is a fucking mess, when there aren’t three other people in it. He has so many dumb little collectables; a tiny dream catcher keychain hanging from his rear-view mirror; a rattling collection of loose change in some foreign currency Sean doesn’t recognise, tucked away in one of the cup holders; cassette tapes for both bands Finn likes, and a few original songs from Cass. Not to mention the odd bit of trash littered around.

And, as Finn pulls up next to the curb outside Sean’s house, he realises he doesn’t want to just say bye. Not just yet. The sun has only just started to set.

“Do you wanna come in?” Sean asks, his hand gripping the door handle maybe a little too tightly. “I mean, you don’t have to, it’s totally cool if you have, like, shit to do with your brothers—”

Sean knows the barebones of what happened to Finn before he moved here, but, he does know that he has shit to do. That family is important to him.

But Finn just shrugs and says, “fuck it.”

The only downside to getting to spend a few more minutes with Finn is that both Daniel and Sean’s dad are in. So. That kinda sucks. Daniel is all over Finn, probably because he has piercings, or dyed hair, or something like that. He thinks it’s cool. He thinks every single thing about Finn is unfathomably cool, and keeps on asking him question after question, as they stand in the kitchen together, his eyes wide with wonder.

“Did it hurt?” He asks, tapping his own nose with an unmatched enthusiasm. Finn shrugs, and bites his bottom lip.

“A little.”

“How did you get that scar?” Daniel then turns his finger to point up at Finn. He’s referring to the tiny line across the bridge of Finn’s nose.

“I—” he hesitates, and seems to stifle a laugh, “I walked into the edge of a table when I was like, two.”

The desperate attempt to uphold the polite facade fucking fails at that moment. Sean and Finn had been trying so hard to sweet-talk Daniel and not laugh in front of him. The kid is nine. He’s just nosy. It’s just really hard to keep a straight face through it all, and the both of them are tittering over the whole ordeal helplessly.

“You were a dumb kid.” Sean breathes, and Finn just nods through his laughter. There is nothing shameful about it.

“You should make up something cooler than that,” Daniel says, crossing his arms, “like... you got in a fight with some bad guys, or something.”

This makes Sean snort, and actually have to lean against the counter top slightly, just because Daniel is being himself. His delightfully childish self, obsessed with Power Bear, with good and bad. Grey is a concept Daniel can’t yet wrap his head around.

Finn just grin at him. “That’s actually a pretty cool idea, little man.” He holds his hand out, palm flat, expectant of a high five. Daniel is very happy to reciprocate the gesture, and he probably does it with a lot more force than Finn was expecting.

All Daniel says before heading off to his bedroom is, “you are so much cooler than Sean.”

Which is probably true. But Sean doesn’t even care, because he most certainly isn’t living in Finn’s shadow. He feels a lot more like himself than he’s ever done.

But Finn just laughs it off. And then he says something that sounds so, so much better than any story he’s ever retold.

“I’m not as hot as him, though.”

It goes over Daniel’s head. Good. That makes Sean glad. Not because he’s scared, not because he feels awkward, having to explain shit to his brother like that Friday night as they washed and dried dishes together. Because it’s his.

“He reminds me of myself,” Finn says, as Sean walks him out. They’re standing on the decking outside his house. The sky is a blazing orange.

“What do you mean?” Sean asks, though he immediately regrets it. Wonders if he should delve somewhere so sensitive.

Finn sighs. “Being the youngest. Like, you always feel like people are taking the piss, because you’re not old enough to get it. Or, whatever.” He turns to look Seam directly in the eye. “I know he must be an annoying little shit most of the time, because trust me, I was one. But, he means well.”

“Yeah.” Sean pauses. “He just... needs attention. Not in a bad way. Like, when our mom left, he wasn’t old enough to really remember her. I think that he thinks that was... his fault.”

For a moment or so, Finn doesn’t say anything. Sean is holding his breath in this moment, waiting to hear a plane overhead, but it never comes. He exhales. Then Finn just nods, as if he’s been told the answer to everything ever.

“See you, Sean.” He places his hand on Sean’s shoulder, and squeezes it.

Once Sean is back inside the house, with the door shut behind him, his dad reappears from seemingly thin air. For some reason that doesn’t really make any sense, Sean feels the overwhelming urge to hug him. So he does.

“Alright, mijo? Who was that?”

“Just my friend,” he murmurs, “Finn.”

“Oh, right,” Esteban nods and ruffles his hair, “he’s the one who did this, yeah? The one who keeps cluttering our house up with dusty books.”

Sean laughs. “Yeah.”

There aren’t very many moments where Sean feels young. He’s always been bitter, older than he’s supposed to be, because of whatever. Karen. The void. But, right now, his head resting against his dad’s shoulder, surrounded by that one quality of God that he always misses out— omni-benevolence— he feels like a little kid. Like Daniel. Scared, but certainly not uncertain. Curious. Itching to say something that might not go down so well.

After a moment or two, Sean steps back. Mumbles something incoherent about how he’s tired, how he’s gonna go to bed. It’s early, but Sean doesn’t even care. He wants to sleep for years and years and years, not out of sadness, nor boredom. Just because he’s fucking tired. The simplicity of that choice, that choice that becomes a want, a need, is empowering.

He showers. All of the dirt and grime sticking to his skin whirlpools down the drain. The water is ever so slightly too cold, but outside, it’s humid, even though the sun has pretty much set now. This cathartic moment starts to blend with that one time after track, like how watercolours bleed into one another if they’re not yet dry. Sitting on the bleachers was a girl with purple hair, and. And, and, and.

(This moment is secretive and discreet, but certainly not shameful. How can he be shameful about it?)

And once Sean has stepped out of the shower, beads of cold water dripping down his forehead and nose, collecting at the bottom of his chin, he catches eye contact with his dad. Just for a second, down the hallway. He’s reading something— some paperwork— over at the kitchen counter. He doesn’t look particularly stressed. If anything, Esteban looks at peace.

That’s why he wants to do it, he thinks. Sean swallows and steps forward.

“Dad..?”

Esteban’s head immediately perks up. “Yeah?”

Suddenly everything overwhelms Sean, and he doesn’t want to, he can’t, because when he’s on his own with Lyla, just Lyla, his very best friend in the entire world, who he knows will accept him, love him unconditionally, who has no reason to hate him ever for who he is, it is so fucking easy, but there is an undying fear coursing through Sean’s veins, a survival instinct kicking in, telling him, screaming at him ‘no, you don’t have the balls,’ though Sean thinks, maybe, maybe, because of purple hair and blue-green eyes, he has the courage to exist—

“I’m bi.”

It’s the single most assertive thing he’s ever said. There is no prefacing ‘I think,’ because Sean knows. And he needs his dad to know. To know who he is and that it isn’t a phase, and— shit. He didn’t really want to cry about this, but it happened anyway.

“Oh, mijo.” And with that, like a wave dragging sand and stones back into the sea, his dad envelopes him in the warmest, and tightest of hugs. “Thank you,” he says, “for feeling able to tell me.”

Sean sniffs. “You’re okay with it?”

“Of course, Sean,” Esteban says, and then he pauses, before adding, “I’m so proud of you.”

•

“You’re gonna be seventeen. You have to do something.”

July is coming to a winding end. As August slowly approaches, dragging its scorched and sunburned feet, hoping to prolong summer as much as possible, Sean’s birthday becomes closer and closer. Lyla has been incessantly bugging him about what he’s going to do. She’s campaigning for some sort of party, saying that they can totally get Eric’s cabin for the night. Invite everyone, smoke, drink, whatever. She even says he should invite Cassidy, and suddenly, it feels like the 28th of October all over again, as Sean and Lyla go to Eric’s cabin in the woods, and Jenn Murphy becomes some sort of divine goddess who shouldn’t really belong in Sean’s life, but somehow does. Hades and Persephone.

And that scares him. Being stuck in that same place he was in when he’d only just turned sixteen.

(But Sean says yes, because he knows something, the same thing that drove him to sit down on that park bench and actually fucking talk to Jenn.)

“Dude,” Lyla shakes him gently by the shoulder, “it’s gonna be so fucking cool. Seriously. Plus, if, say, you and Cassidy ended up all alone outside,” she grins, wrapping her arms tightly around Sean, “you could keep each other company.”

“I— I honestly don’t think I like her like that.” Sean says, truthfully.

Lyla immediately lets go of him. “Okay cool, is she into girls?”

This actually makes Sean laugh. She’s joking, of course. But. There’s just something about Lyla, her subtle support, that is so good. “She’s straight,” he says, and she just smirks.

“I can’t believe we’re gonna be Seniors,” she says, “remember in, like, fourth grade when we all pretended we were way older than we were? And we convinced ourselves we were drunk off of pop, and ‘smoked’ those candy sticks?”

“How far we’ve come,” Sean jokes, the sarcasm dripping from his words. Lyla laughs.

•

“Sean?”

Jenn Murphy is standing in front of Sean Diaz, in the corner shop. He’s buying a bag of crisps. She has what looks like a box of tampons in her hand. But, the most important detail is that Sean has no fucking clue why his ex girlfriend who he presumed hated him is standing in front of him with a half-smile.

“Oh,” he says, like he’s been told an underwhelming fun fact, “hey.”

“Sorry,” she hesitates, “um. I was going to text you, but... fuck it, I’d rather talk to you in person.”

She wants to talk to him?

“Look. I was really pissed off when we broke up, because I just couldn’t understand why you’d go out with me at all if you didn’t really like me.”

Sean shrugs. “I mean. It was a pretty shitty thing to do. Don’t feel obliged to forgive me, or whatever.”

This makes Jenn wrinkle her nose up. “I don’t think I do, really. But I have moved on, and I don’t want things to be... awkward, anymore. I mean, we have mutual friends,” she pauses, before adding, “plus, I heard you’re still shit at Math.”

“Yeah,” Sean finds himself nodding, “uh. That’s cool. Totally.”

There is a small pause.

“Sorry, by the way,” he says, because he feels he hasn’t said it enough already, because Jenn Murphy is such an attractive and sweet and kind-hearted girl who deserved so much better than That Sean Diaz. The boy who went to track practice to avoid her, who didn’t kiss her back properly, who tried his very best to not have to be all touchy-feely. That Sean feels so distant and false, like some crappy, plastic Halloween mask you sling on and off within the same day. Left, discarded, collecting cobwebs in the cupboard under the stairs.

There were definitely moments when Sean thought he was in love with Jenn Murphy. Like that one time at her place, when her parents were out, and it was just them, so they watched a movie, and talked, and made out. Like that one split-second on the bus, once, after school, where she squeezed his hand and brushed her thumb over his knuckles. Like on the 28th of October, when they sat outside Eric’s cabin in the woods, sharing a blanket, being so impossibly close for the first time ever.

But, Sean knows that he and Jenn are just another pair of high school sweethearts. Not meant to last forever. And he’s okay with that.

“Dude, it’s fine,” she smiles, “happy birthday for tomorrow, by the way.”

And then she leaves. Just like that.

•

There are a lot more people coming tonight that Sean has anticipated. Honestly? He’d thought it’d be his and Lyla’s friendship group, Cass and Finn. It’s not, according to Eric, who has invited basically everyone who went to his Halloweed party. Which was a lot of people who didn’t really know Sean. If Sean had to list the people he knows and cares about coming tonight, he could do it on his fingers.

It’s just the three of them, Sean, Lyla and Eric, sitting around his cabin. Getting ready for the place to be literally fucking destroyed by a bunch of wasted teenagers. Sean came back with his crisps, after his small conversation with Jenn, to find Lyla and Eric had completely given up on stocking the outdoor fridge with booze.

“What time were you born?” Lyla asks, her eyes trained on her phone screen as she’s putting together a playlist for tonight.

Sean shrugs. “Like, four AM.”

That kinda sucks, actually. That, most of the time, he’s not even awake to celebrate the moment. Four AM is such a sluggish and awkward time, because it’s the next morning, but you can’t help but still feel trapped in those long hours past midnight that never seem to end. Time always gets fucked if you stay up too late anyway.

Sean’s so glad the party is tonight, the day before his actual birthday. Tomorrow, he and his dad and Daniel will get pizza, play videos games and watch some shitty buddy cop film together. He might be a little hungover, but he won’t be spending the whole day out. Without the people that are most important.

“That would be such a shit time to have a baby.” Eric says, and Lyla scoffs.

“Because you’re well versed in the experience of childbirth.” She jokes.

For the next few hours, they just sit around. Talking. It’s something reminiscent of sitting between the trees, in the sanctuary, hearing about conspiracy theories and tattoos, listening to a song you don’t recognise and yet still knowing the words somehow, admitting something you’ve been scared to do for some time. And, by ten, a few people are starting to show.

Eric is good at parties. He’s the king of the fucking world, greeting almost everyone that walks through the door, handing out booze, changing the music, whatever. Reigning above his loyal, and truly, truly wasted subjects. Sean usually just fades into the background, but honestly, he’s okay with that. That’s who he is, and it’s not a bad thing.

Sure, Lyla has been forcing him to talk to a few people he doesn’t know that well. But it’s fine. Pretty much everyone here has one common interest: weed.

The music is pulsing through the entire cabin, and masses of limbs, sweaty, sparkling bodies sway to it. People spill out of the doors, overflowing into the woods surrounding them, encapsulating them. It smells of skin and alcohol and smoke, this overpowering and potent stench. Litter is already strewn across the floorboards, crinkling under the constant stamp of feet to the beat. If anything, it’s too hot in here. It’s so fucking hot, it feels like Sean’s shirt is sticking to his back, and he thinks he can taste blood in his mouth.

He’s running all over again. His heart is beating too fast, the blood shooting through his veins at such a high pressure that there is no doubt some vital artery will rupture. All of that dark, dark red will spurt out over a crowd of rejoicing and stoned teenagers, who will cheer and scream and laugh like nothing is wrong.

The doubt is curling up in the pit of his stomach, those ribbons being pulled into a bow tighter than ever before. How can an undoing be graceful if it isn’t even there at all?

“Dude. What’s wrong?”

Lyla and Sean are standing, cramped in a corner of the kitchen. She is leaning against the counter, pulling her hair back from her eyes and the nape of her neck and tying it up. Sean is gripping a red solo cup like it’s a fucking life float, and he is stranded in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. He can’t relax. Why can’t he relax?

“I dunno,” Sean shrugs, and wrinkles his nose up, “there’s just... more people than I expected. I guess.” He bites his bottom lip. Lyla narrows her eyes.

“I haven’t seen, uh, Cassidy. Or her friends. You sure they’re coming?”

They’re supposed to be, but they’ve yet to show. Sean is scared.

“Yeah.” He nods.

Lyla sighs, and drops her makeshift ponytail, letting her hair flutter back down around her face. “Then what’s wrong?”

“I just... what if I haven’t changed at all? Like, in the past year,” he says, and he wants to say it quietly, but he can’t really because it’s just so fucking loud, “I mean, what the fuck is actually different?”

Nothing. There is nothing. Sean still feels like he’s running. Running, because he so desperately wants things to change, running because he is forcing himself to be someone else. And then, as he winds around that final red-and-white bend, and comes to a standstill, he rejects that change. Sean is kept still by indecision, and he doesn’t want to be. His start-and-stop nature, his want to change, and yet his reluctance to even really try, has resulted in him being stuck, glued to the same spot he started in.

Lyla stares at him for a second, eyes fixed on him. Then, she pushes herself off the side of the kitchen counter, and taps his chest with her index finger. “Bullshit,” she says, in a soft and slightly slurred voice, “you’re yourself. You know who you are.”

There is a pause. Sean doesn’t say anything.

“Are you happy, Sean?”

Is he happy?

Sean thinks about happy. He thinks about everything that word means to him, and all the things that come flooding into his mind when he hears it. Lyla, walking backwards down the pavement; Daniel, showing him a cardboard robot; sitting between the trees and smoking and talking; staying up until an ungodly hour with his best friend, because he knows she can’t sleep well, and he just wants to hear her voice forever; a random book Sean has never heard of before, being retold in the most eloquent way; his dad.

So he says, “yeah.” And he fucking means it.

That quarter-past-midnight doubt is flushing out of the cabin like it was never there. All of those small memories, Lyla staggering about with a feigned expression of drunkenness on her face, Eric and Ellery fighting over who got the last candy stick from the cardboard box, are just small memories. Not a reminder that Sean is the same he’s always been, because he isn’t. How can he be?

Jenn Murphy smiled at him today, because he has changed.

“Thank fuck for that,” Lyla says, “you’re seventeen in, like, five hours. You can’t be mopey and existential all fucking night.”

“Fuck off,” he says, which makes her grin. It looks crooked in the dim light, and menacingly reminiscent of Halloween. She pats him softly on the cheek.

“Hey. Cynicism ain’t a bad thing,” then, Lyla says something that hits Sean in the chest; “it’s who you are.”

They stand there, in the corner of the kitchen for about another ten minutes, talking about whatever. Upcoming Misty Mice gigs, Senior year, if either of them are going to get laid tonight (Lyla doesn’t bring up Cassidy) and, most importantly, the fact that there’s apparently a girl who actually likes Lyla back. That never happens. They’re always straight, or just really, really don’t like her specifically.

And then, at some nondescript time, Cassidy just appears from thin air. She doesn’t weave through the masses like others might, but rather parts a sea of wasted teenagers with her pure, unfiltered badass aura. There is something undoubtedly godly about her, for sure. She appears to have been searching for Sean for quite some time, because once her eyes land on him, she lets out an exasperated sigh, marches across the kitchen and jabs him in the chest.

“You,” she says, surprisingly out of breath, “are a shit host. We got here, like, twenty minutes ago. How many fucking people are even here?”

Sean is acutely aware that there are way too many people in this cabin. Most of them don’t know who he is, and considering this is supposed to be his party, he’s pretty sure Eric just invited them with the promise of weed. Figures.

“Um, more than there were supposed to be.”

Lyla clears her throat. “Yeah, uh, basically 90% of the people here aren’t our friends,” then, she decides to completely change the subject, “hi, by the way. Still haven’t properly met.” After saying this, Lyla splays her palm out to wave her hand like a small child might. It ends up looking really fucking stupid because of her painfully blunt delivery, but the sentiment is there.

Apparently, this gesture dumbfounds Cassidy. Her perfect composure flickers for a second, that unfathomable sickness wavering. “Uh, yeah. Hey. Or. Um,” she hesitates for a moment, clearly thinking through what she’s going to say next, before presumably giving up and muttering, “yeah.”

“Wow,” smirking, Lyla says, “you sound like Sean when a girl breathes near him.”

“That’s not even true.” He insists. Even though it kind of is. Even though Sean is literally the shyest guy to ever walk the face of this earth, for some fucking reason.

“Oh, sorry,” Lyla laughs, “you sound like Sean when anyone breathes near him.”

After she says this, she turns to him with a warm smile. He knows what she means. Cass doesn’t. Not yet, anyway, and Sean is honestly okay with that. It’s not like he’s going around screaming from the top of his lungs, like, this is who he is now. Because he’s been the same person he was all along.

Sean doesn’t even have the energy to defend himself. He just laughs, because it’s fucking true and he doesn’t care. Cassidy says something, some offhand remark about his general vibe of awkwardness, which sets Lyla off about some childhood anecdote. Some stupid thing he did in elementary school because he was too shy to prevent it from happening.

“Finn! Get your butt over here,” Cass calls over a few people’s heads, as she suddenly spots her friend, “we’re making fun of Sean.”

Finn seems to coexist with Cassidy in this bubble of holy goodness, because he also emerges from the crowd unscathed. That shit is an actual miracle. His hair is down for once, and the blue tips look bolder, brighter under the shitty cabin lights.

And, as Lyla is taking a sip of her drink, Finn simply says, “you can make fun of him all you want, but he’s still cute.”

That causes Lyla to promptly, and so subtly, choke on said beverage.

“Dude,” Finn continues, looking directly at Sean now, “this party is fucking wild.”

Cassidy snorts. “None of them are even here for him,” she gestures out to the swarming mob, “they just wanted the weed.”

“It’s cool,” Sean shrugs, “Eric will kick them out eventually. Once someone throws up somewhere they’re not supposed to.”

“I bet ten bucks it’s Evie.” Lyla pipes up, now that her minor hacking fit has subsided. “She always manages to hurl at the most inappropriate of times.”

Sean has one too many memories of that girl vomiting in unfortunate situations.

“Like that time last Halloween when you were gonna get off with Jenn Murphy, and then she ended up spewing all over you on your way to talk to her.” Lyla says, choosing the worst possible time to recall that moment ever. Jesus.

Finn just laughs though. “Sexy.”

It’s not really that different to standing in his own kitchen, breaking down into hysterics over the thought of Finn walking into a table.

As he says this, though, Lyla’s hand suddenly grasps at Sean’s forearm. She’s grinning. He has no idea why, until he hears the boom of the music, and chords to a so-very familiar song. A song that Sean and Lyla will instantly recognise, because it’s a song they play to each other again and again, a song that Sean showed Lyla, but a song that Lyla remembered for Sean. She must’ve put it on the playlist she was making earlier, because it’s that same song they danced to all those months ago.

“Dude,” she says to him, “c’mon. Dance floor. Now.”

And Sean wants to stay and talk with his other friends too, but this song. He can’t say no. He gives Cass and Finn an apologetic look, and tells them they’ll meet up again soon, before letting Lyla take him by the hand and drag him into a hoard of intoxicated teenagers. They’re all swaying wildly to the beat, so fast, so high, some of them so painfully out of time. People are screaming and whooping, making out, spilling drinks, tripping over one another as they fight for a space to place their feet upon the floor. Sean grips Lyla’s hand tighter as she weaves them through the smallest of gaps, squeezing between bodies, skin against skin, sweat mixing with sweat.

They are finally in the middle of the living room.

That’s when Lyla wraps her arms around Sean’s neck, and he realises what she’s doing.

“Your turn to lead the dance, master player.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sean laughs, as his hands find their way to her waist, and they resume the waltz they began so long ago now. Just the two of them are slow dancing, at this agonising pace. Two tiny blips, dragging along amidst a crowd of fucking maniacs. Where everyone else is moving like they might die if they stop, Sean and Lyla are swaying, swaying, swaying so that everything might slow down, and they can watch disaster unfurl before anyone else realises it has even hit.

“Uh,” Lyla grins, her tone of voice making it sound like whatever she’s about to say is obvious, “Finn likes you.”

Sean doesn’t say anything.

“I mean, I was going on and on about how you must like someone, because all you seem to do is talk about Cassidy and her friends, and yet somehow I didn’t piece together, even after you came out, it might be the guy you’ve become super close with.” She laughs. “And fuck, it’s obvious as well. It’s like he thinks ‘what’s the gayest thing I can say?’ every time he speaks to you.”

Sean can’t say anything.

Lyla just sighs, pulling him in even closer. “And you like it,” their song is almost finished now, as she continues, “because you like him. Damnit, Sean, why do you never let Lyla the Love Witch work her magic?”

“Can you do me a favour?” Sean asks her, watching as her eyes light up.

“Fuck yes, okay,” she pulls back from the dance, smiling so wide her face might tear in half, “I’ll cause a distraction at some point and— ooh, maybe we could get a group together to play, like, seven minutes in heaven or—”

“Shut up about Finn for the rest of the night,” Sean cuts in massively, “please.”

Lyla’s excitable expression immediately drops, not into anything disappointed or upset, but rather smug instead. “Jesus, you are so smitten,” she rolls her eyes, “very well. Reject the Love Witch’s help if you must.”

“I really fucking must.” Sean says. A smile twitches on his face.

Some point after that, once Sean and Lyla have escaped from the clutches of that claustrophobic dance floor, they find themselves outside on the cabin decking. The cabin decking that Sean sat on back in October, with Jenn Murphy.

But tonight, perched across the precipice, and smoking together, are Penny, Hannah, Cassidy and Finn.

“Birthday boy’s back,” Cass remarks, tilting her head to the side when she first spots Sean and Lyla.

Hannah turns around to face them, her face etched with that ever-present annoyance. Then, her eyes settle on Lyla, and she asks, “are you the girl they kept saying Sean hooked up with?”

Sean forgot that was a thing Finn convinced Hannah about.

Thankfully, Lyla just laughs it off. And says they’re just friends. And then, because it’s almost a legal requirement for her at this point, she just drops the bombshell that is her sexuality, winks, and sits down on the decking.

“Amen to that,” Penny says, which makes Sean think of his dad. His dad, who, although being a man of faith, held him tighter than ever before that Friday evening.

“Hmm,” Hannah shrugs, “shameless flirting. I can get behind that.”

“That’s why you like me so much, Hans.” Finn says, grinning. She just scowls at him.

She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t need to, not really. Everyone knows that Hannah and Finn have— under a lack of all other possible words— a thing. But it’s not, like, a thing. It’s Hannah, sitting in shotgun every once in a while, when Finn comes to pick Sean up. Even though her house is after his. No one ever really talks about it, though, so Sean certainly never has. He doesn’t want to, really. Doesn’t care. Everyone knows, and no one says anything.

“Wait.”

Apart from Lyla.

“Are you guys together?” She asks, pointing between Hannah and Finn. This is apparently particularly funny to Hannah, who starts legitimately giggling. Hannah. Giggling.

“We’re just fuck buddies,” she shrugs nonchalantly, “you know? Fuck who you wanna fuck.”

“Or don’t.” Cassidy says.

“We’re not into the whole fucked up ‘system.’” Penny says, melodramatic as ever. He says it like relationships are a government scheme designed to do some menacing and overarching evil.

“Exactly!” Finn shoves his finger towards Penny, as if he just performed a poem to end all the wars in the world and Finn is a particularly passionate pacifist. “No one’s telling me who’s dick to suck. That’s fuckin’ freedom.”

The wrong kind of question is planted in Sean’s head when he says that. But he wants to ask it. He really does. He knows he shouldn’t, knows it’ll kill the mood, make shit awkward, and only leave him feeling disappointed.

“Does that mean you’re into guys, then?” Lyla blurts out, before Sean even has a chance to figure those words out by himself. Her question is pointed, a double-edged knife that won’t end well for anyone.

But Finn just shrugs like she’s asked him if he prefers smooth or chunky peanut butter. “Uh... that depends on the position,” he laughs to himself, “but sure. Whatever. I’m not picky.”

“God, wanna talk about your scoreboard, hotshot?” Cassidy grins crookedly, nudging Finn with her foot.

“Says you,” Hannah pipes up at the chance to call her out, “I swear I can’t keep track of all your fucking boyfriends. ‘Ooh, Jack is so cute,’” she puts on a high pitched voice that sounds nothing like Cassidy, “‘I can’t believe Tom dumped me. Hey, Sean, let’s talk,’ blah, blah, blah. Go through every song you’ve ever written and most of them are just, like, indie Taylor Swift rip-offs.”

Cassidy hesitates for a second, her hand raised and forefinger pointed at Hannah, but then she just drops her defensive posture, letting all of the air out of her puffed up chest. “Not even gonna argue with you.”

“Your songs are still good, though.” Sean says to her, which is apparently deeply amusing. She smiles, kisses her first two fingers, and blows it across the decking towards him.

“Ooh, what about you, Sean,” Finn stares him down, narrowing his green-blue eyes, “who you wanna fuck?”

Suddenly, everything goes very still. Sean is back on that dance floor with Lyla, swaying impossibly slow against a thrashing sea of limbs. They are the only two people in the world who can see the storm before it hits. She looks at him, asking him with her eyes if he’s ready. And, maybe, maybe he is. This is a safe space. This is a sanctuary.

“I guess I’m mostly into girls,” he says, “but some boys are cute.”

And as he speaks those words into existence, Sean feels that omniscience, that omnipotence that Lyla must’ve felt in Eighth grade when she told him she was gay. The knowledge and power of self.

Finn smirks. “Ooh, what’s your type?”

“Jeez,” Cassidy shoves him gently, like she’s trying to get him to back down, “give him a break, master player.”

“I’m kiddin’,” Finn says, and the way he brushes it off makes Sean’s heart do this weird, wavering thing that he really doesn’t like. But then, he turns it around so suddenly and says, “he knows I’m cute.”

Somersaulting. That’s what it feels like. 

But those turns reform as tumbles, because Penny lets out a low groaning sound, and announces, “I’m too high for your shit.” He stands up, towering above them all like he’s about to leave.

Finn quirks a brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If something breathes, you’ll fuckin’ flirt with it.”

And, as if only to prove Penny’s point, Finn winks at him. “Don’t you know it, my man.”

“You thirsty bitch.” Lyla says to Finn, moderately scandalised. Her eyes dart across the circle they’re sat in to Sean, shooting him a look. One he doesn’t particularly appreciate. He glares at her in return until she drops it.

“I heard someone here has some purple, so,” Penny shrugs, “see you losers.”

“Count me in,” Hannah says, uncrossing her legs and finding her feet far too quickly for someone as trashed as she is. It’s like the mention of weed summons this unchallengeable strength within them. “No one start fucking without us,” she points down at Finn specifically, her eyes slanted, and her voice as threatening as ever. However, that signature scowl is replaced with a friendly smile.

Hannah is human. It’s almost surprising to Sean to be aware of that fact; she loves her fucking family, and just because she’s a stone cold bitch, that doesn’t make any of her benevolence wobble.

She and Penny disappear back into the cabin, forging their way through the mass of bodies. The way Hannah marches through crowds is wholly different to Cassidy and Finn. Instead of repelling people like some pure, god-like being, Hannah smites people where they stand, like gallant Macbeth reincarnated, carving his path through the enemy with a sword alone.

“Wow,” Cass says, “I can’t fuckin’ believe I’m actually here right now.”

“What do you mean?” Sean asks her.

“Divine intervention has to fucking exist, because you’re just some random city boy I happened to catch eyes with at a track race.” She laughs, but it sounds as though she’s underwater. Sean wants her to repeat what she’s just said over and over again because he can’t believe it.

The loop. That final frame that slotted into place; a girl, with purple hair, smiling.

She remembers the first time they ever noticed one another.

“You actually remember that?”

“Yeah,” Cassidy grins, “pretty boy beats hench Senior in his dumb race. I was actually invested in that, you know. Usually I’m just jumping at the bit for you guys to leave, so we can smoke. But you’re different, Sean Diaz.”

Fate is total cosmic bullshit. But, Sean feels as though he was born to meet Cassidy. To wind up, sitting here on the decking outside Eric’s cabin in the woods, on his birthday, with the people he feels most as home with.

“Boo! Sap.” Lyla scoffs. This is what she always does. Refuses to soften up until it’s just her and Sean. Walking backwards down the pavement, dancing outside his house, curled up in bed together, wearing his sweatshirt. So Sean shoves her in the side, gently, cautiously, and she shuts her mouth.

“To be fair,” Finn says, “that was really fuckin’ sappy.”

Cassidy makes a strangled noise of outrage. “I’m sorry, Mister ‘life is like a river, you’ve just got to go with the flow.’ You’re an actual hippy.”

“Damn straight. And?”

“Fuck off.” She grins.

For what feels like hours, they just sit and talk. They talk 4 AM, and certain songs, and cars, and boys and girls, and books. Talking is all Sean seems to do these days, and he doesn’t even care. He could sit with Lyla, in the park, on his couch, together in bed, and they’d ramble together about the smallest and stupidest of things. Their heartfelt and childhood friendship. He could sit with Cassidy, on a saddening bench, in the school car park, by the bleachers, and they would chat over that comfortable middle ground. Walking the line between big and small talk. He could sit with Finn, next to him in his car, under the trees, in the library, and they would discuss the universe like it’s a game of cards. Something so much more than conversation.

“Remind me to give you a tat for your next birthday,” Cassidy grins at Sean, pulling her hoodie sleeve back down to her wrist, “graduation gift.”

She’s been showing off all the recent tattoos she’s gotten done. Somehow, in only a few months of graduating, Cassidy has become a semi-living canvas. Sean would love tattoos. To permanently have art, his own art, all over his body, telling stories. Speaking those myths and legends into existence like Finn does.

“Ooh,” Finn says, “hot.”

“What?”

“Tats are immediate bonus hot points,” Finn explains, as though this is a well known rating system in the world, “not that you need any, sweetheart.”

Sean is about to say something, or maybe Finn is, because both of them are uneasy, eyes darting around and refusing to focus on anything in particular. No take-backs in tag was always one of Sean’s favourite rules, chasing Daniel around the yard in peak summertime. Right now, take-backs seem easy, seem able to undo those fucking acrobatics inside Sean’s chest.

“Fuck, I need to piss,” Lyla says, clapping herself on the knees awkwardly, “does anyone have a spare tampon?”

She’s staring directly at Cass. Figures, really. Sean highly doubts Finn would have a tampon on him right now. Normally, this interaction would be mundane and unimportant, just something that comes and goes and is completely forgotten about. But Sean is Lyla’s best friend. He knows she’s not on her period, because she would’ve just gotten off last week. Lyla really likes to overshare about her menstrual cycle, and Sean isn’t even that bothered by it. It’s fucking natural. Plus, on the first few days, her cramps are always the worst, so they have little pity parties around her’s where they just smoke and eat really shitty quality chocolate.

There is literally no reason on this good earth why Lyla would need a tampon right now.

There is some sort of unspoken conversation happening between Lyla and Cassidy right now. Words exchanged that no one else can understand, promises made that only mean anything to them.

“Not on me,” Cass says, “but we can go find some.”

Her tone is purposeful. Deliberate.

Lyla grins. “Great.”

And so, she and Cassidy leave, saying over and over that they’ll only be a few minutes, that it won’t be that hard to hunt a single tampon down, etcetera, etcetera. Sean catches Lyla’s shit-eating grin and she plunges headfirst back into the cabin. Disappearing. Evading being burnt at the stake; Lyla the Love Witch.

For fuck’s sake.

Sean feels like he does after a race; heart, threatening to pummel out of his chest completely. He doesn’t really want to think about all of this stuff right now. Those thoughts only exist in the shower, and wash down the drain. There hasn’t been a single sign that has necessarily deterred Sean, but this is still a whole different ballgame to Jenn Murphy. She was cute, and smart, and funny. They got along. Whatever.

Right now, Sean feels like he’s falling irreversibly in love. And he has never felt something as extreme as that.

“You know,” Finn says, shifting his weight on the deck, so he’s closer to Sean’s side, “Cass is right. About divine intervention. Fate. All that crap. Like, there’s got to be a reason why we’re all where we are right now.”

Sean hopes and wishes with all of his being that the reason is what he wants it to be.

But, Finn just smiles at him. “I’m really glad we met, Sean. I feel like we have a... strong connection.”

Oh.

Sean’s silence must scare Finn, because he hangs his head ever so slightly. Is that... shame? On Finn?

“That’s me,” he says, and he is sheepish, “always getting obsessed over people I meet.” He leans over to tap Sean’s chest. Right over his heart. It’s a miracle he doesn’t feel it threatening to hammer through his ribs.

But, when Sean still doesn’t say anything— can’t say anything— he retreats. “Sorry about that...” he trails off, and chuckles to himself. Laughs it off. It doesn’t sound real, bona fide.

“I...” Sean starts, suddenly, having not even thought about what he’s about to say, “I think I feel... the same.”

Finn’s hand is on his knee. That music, blaring from inside, is far too fast for the slow-motion dimension Sean has come to exist in.

In the softest voice Sean has ever heard, Finn asks, “what are you afraid of, then?”

“Nothing.”

And that single, defiant word pulls the ribbons apart, triggering a twisting, turning, tumbling fall that rolls into the undoing of a facade, a mask that Sean has worn for far too long.

There is a hesitant moment, a dash of uncertainty, where take-backs become unbearably wanted.

But, this is the single most tender declaration of self Sean has ever experienced. Because. Because he isn’t afraid of anything. The thud of his heart, that underlying worry that some vital artery will just rupture, is gone. So is the music, the dancing, swaying kids spilling from the cabin.

The only two things in the entire universe are Sean and Finn, orbiting around each other. Slowly, surely inching into a collision, an implosion that will start new galaxies entirely.

They meet, noses bumping, heads tilting. Lips upon lips. Finn’s grip on his knee tightens, and Sean finds himself grabbing his thigh, in some act that is far, far more intimate than the friendly, but hands-on touches they’ve exchanged before. Finn wraps his other arm around Sean, pulling him impossibly close, so much closer than he thought he could ever be to someone, as close as he’s ever wanted to be to— to Finn.

And when he pulls back, breaks the kiss just for a second, Sean chases him down, presses their lips together all over again. He thinks he’d follow Finn anywhere. To the ends of the earth. They could just sit in his rusting, yellow Ford, and listen to cassettes playing songs he’s never heard before, yet still somehow knows the words to, and they would drive, drive and drive and drive to everywhere and nowhere at the exact same time. Sean can’t bring himself to break this orbit, drag himself from the gravitational pull he feels around Finn.

And then it’s over. Finn’s face is only centimetres from Sean’s, his lips slightly parted, spreading into the smallest of smiles.

“That,” he says, “was probably the hottest thing you’ve ever done.”

Sean laughs. “Yeah?”

“Fuckin’ A,” Finn grins, “plus, it was with me... and I’m like, plus a million hot points.”

His head is lolling again, resting against Sean’s shoulder, in the crook of his neck. They fit together perfectly, pieces of a jigsaw.

“Sure,” Sean says, not because he disagrees, but because he just likes to tease Finn. And then, that question that was planted in his mind what must’ve only been half an hour ago, but feels like centuries instead, blossoms from seed into sapling. He bites his bottom lip, and glances around at the woods, the cabin, forming themselves back into the same void as them.

“Do you wanna... come back? To my place, I mean?” He asks, and can’t help but think of every single time Finn would drive past Hannah’s house on the way back from the sanctuary, his foot easing on the break, eyes darting over to her. Every time she’d shrug, and he wouldn’t stop to let her out. Every time it wouldn’t just be Sean, Finn and Cass left in that Ford Mustang as they rounded his street.

But Sean guesses all those moments aren’t a looping reel in Finn’s head, because he just says yes. No second thought. No questioning. No suggestive look. He feels relieved, honestly.

Unfortunately, Lyla doesn’t spare him in the same way. After about ten minutes, he’s managed to spot her and Cassidy, back in the kitchen, and waded over to them with Finn. They’re standing, drinking, talking, laughing.

“I thought you guys were... looking for tampons?” Sean asks, although he already fucking knows what they were doing. Cassidy’s lips twitch, and she suppresses a smile.

“We are,” she says, “but you wouldn’t understand what we’re doing, because you’re not a girl.”

Sean just sighs, mildly exasperated. “Yeah, well... I— we— are going back to mine.”

This makes Lyla’s eyes widen, and she takes a painfully long sip of her drink, before asking, “is that so?”

Her fucking tone. Cassidy’s fucking face.

“We did actually find some condoms, so—”

“Get your fuckin’ mind out of the gutter.” Finn says, butting in before Cassidy can finish whatever horrible message she wanted to get across. She and Lyla exchange another one of their looks. Looks Sean can’t quite understand, but doesn’t necessarily need to. 

Then, Lyla pulls Sean into a tight hug. “Happy birthday, my dude,” she says, at an audible level, before leaning in closer, to whisper in his ear, “Lyla the Love Witch strikes again.”

“See ya, loser,” Cassidy says to Finn, patting him on the cheek. Turning to Sean, she simply says “happy birthday,” and then something— something important— about that park bench. Something Sean will remember.

Sean and Finn are drunkenly stumbling home, down the pavement, hand clutching hand. Laughing. Laughing at literally nothing. There is an absence of conversation, but where Sean might’ve missed it before, he doesn’t now.

Shaking, clumsy hands unlock Sean’s front door, once they finally reach it. It’s surprisingly cold, for an August night. It’s not been particularly humid recently, and with the sun under lock down below the horizon line, there’s no warmth bearing down from it. As Sean turns the door handle, Finn presses his back against it and kisses him. It’s not quite as soft as before, but it’s still gentle and tender and important. They stumble inside the house, and Sean has to shush Finn, who is snickering about whatever, as he takes his hand again, and leads him to his room. Thankfully, after having snuck home late many nights, Sean knows where the creakiest floorboards are, and avoids stepping over them.

And then, the both of them are standing in Sean’s room, the door firmly shut behind them.

It’s 3:43 AM.

“Fuck, I’m trashed.” Finn says under his breath, his words slurring together. He raises his arms above his head to stretch, and Sean can just about hear his spine crack in the silence of the house.

“Mmm.” Sean doesn’t really say anything. Doesn’t feel the need to. He’s just tired, and he really wants to sleep. The euphoria has worn off, washed over him now. In this very moment, Sean just wants to lie down for a very long time. He starts to tug his shirt— which is fucking nasty after that party— off.

“Ooh,” Finn’s voice is unusually low, “‘m liking this show.”

“Fuck off.” Sean says, swatting him lightly with his discarded shirt. Finn laughs, tugging at the hem and pulling Sean a little closer. For a moment, he just stares at him, like Sean is some greatly intriguing deep sea creature never seen before. Then, he leans in, and they’re kissing all over again. Making out. Whatever. Sean is too tired to give a shit. He’s an artist, not a writer. Words fail to portray this moment any better than a painting could.

3:46 AM.

Sean shucks off the last of his party-tainted clothes. God, he could wear literally anything else right now. His feet ache and he doesn’t want to keep his eyes open for much longer, so he rummages around for a t-shirt, an old Misty Mice one at the bottom of his closet, to wear. Finn has wound up borrowing a sweatshirt, that same one Lyla wore back in June now. It’s light pink. Sean never wears it anyway.

“Dude,” Sean says, as Finn leans into him, pressing their foreheads together, “you’re so fucking short.”

Finn splutters, apparently offended. “There’s like, an inch between us.”

“Nah. You’re tiny.” Grinning, Sean tucks a strand of Finn’s hair behind his ear. It’s something bold and intimate and utterly unlike Sean, but he likes it. His hand hovers there for a second, fingers slowly curling around Finn’s hair. It’s really fucking soft.

Bold and intimate and utterly unlike himself. That’s how Sean feels, as he pulls Finn into a slow, slow kiss. His hand is tangled in bluish-red hair on the back of Finn’s head, pressing them closer together, as though the clay they were moulded from might roll together into a different mass entirely, something whole and resolute. Turning over the page, starting a new chapter.

3:50 AM.

Finn drags Sean into bed, lovers’ limbs intertwining, locking together like cogs in a machine. Sean really wants to kiss him. Every single time he pulls back and breaks that moment, the staggering disbelief he even did it all, the ‘I kinda wanna do it again,’ creeps into his mind, and consumes every other thought he’s ever had.

“Can’t believe summer’s almost over,” Finn says, “it’s fuckin’ bullshit.”

“Not like you have to go back to school though, is it?” Sean is so fucking envious of him. Graduation seems to be the place Sean is destined for, the most important moment in his life, when he’ll finally be free of a place he long outgrew. Fucking high school.

Finn shrugs. “Yeah, but everyone else is going to college. Cass, Hans, Penny,” he lists them off, the only three people that truly, truly matter to him, “and then I’ll just be... whoever. Unimportant.”

Sean doesn’t say anything.

3:53 AM.

“I’m never usually scared about, like, the future. Or who I am,” Finn continues, “but I just... I dunno. What if they all leave, and then I realise how fuckin’ boring and— whatever— I am?”

“I am,” Sean says, and the truth of it overwhelms him, “I’m scared about that all the fucking time.”

“What do you do to get over it?” Finn asks him, eyes wide, hopeful. Searching for answers he doesn’t have himself, in Sean.

“I don’t know.” Sean says, because, no one ever really asks Sean for answers. He’s always the one trying to find shit out from other people. How is he supposed to explain something he is omniscient about to someone who knows so, so, so little?

“I guess,” he tries, tries to put it into words like Finn can, “like. You have to figure out who you are. Like, independent from anyone else.”

The look of confusion on Finn’s face isn’t helping. Sean is an artist. He can’t do this.

“How?” He asks.

Sean knows how, he knows exactly how to make his pen fill the page with line and tone and texture, carefully crafting a portrait of self. Of so much more than track star, than bad at Math. More than Sean And Lyla, more than the fucking city boy Cassidy drags around. Sean can paint himself, slowly, softly. It doesn’t matter how his hair looks, doesn’t matter what his greatest, deepest interest is. Sean doesn’t form that page of his sketchbook with skating and smoking. He forms it with a good-hearted nature, with cynicism, with observation and care, and admiration and responsibility, focus, dedication, fierce loyalty. All of the things, the real things, that make Sean who he is.

3:56 AM.

“You know when you’re in, like, second grade and they ask you to use three words to describe yourself as an ice breaker?” Sean asks, and then discloses, “like that.”

Finn snorts. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you do it for me?”

“Why?”

Finn shrugs. “I wanna know what you think of me.”

This puts Sean on the fucking spot, which is something he hates. It’s— it’s harder, with someone else. Someone you’re scared you don’t truly know. “You’re...” he hesitates, “considerate, and loyal,” and Sean really, really hopes that one is true, “and deeply unserious. About everything.”

“Hey.”

“Most things.”

Finn sighs, and rolls over onto his back.

3:57 AM.

“Are you scared right now?” He asks. “Like, about the future and stuff?”

Sean hesitates. All of a sudden, he has been thrown back into those crashing waves of quarter-past-midnight-doubt, and he’s standing in Eric’s kitchen, having to answer the hardest question. Are you happy? Are you scared? Are those two things exclusive to one another? Sean has been scared so many times in his life, and he’s not entirely sure he’s been happy that much. There’s one, maybe two moments, in which Sean has experienced such euphoria, such pure and unadulterated joy, without a curling fear in his stomach.

But, right now Sean doesn’t think he can be scared. This, this in its very self, is bravery. That tacky and plastic Halloween mask from the dollar store, the simple disguise that represses every single piece of truth about Sean has been discarded, somewhere on the forest floor. Outside Eric’s cabin, in the woods, on the decking.

“No.”

3:59 AM.

“It’s almost 4 AM.” Finn remarks, glancing at the clock residing on the bedside table.

“Yeah,” Sean breathes.

The house is so fucking quiet. The only sound consistently filling that void is breathing. In. Out. Slow and soft.

Finn leans back over onto his side, and takes Sean’s face between his hands.

4:00 AM.

“Happy birthday, Sean.”

And then they kiss. Again. Which is good. Nice. Sean’s too tired to sketch this out, commemorate it in his mind. He can’t make it as beautiful and effortless as the first time, the turning, twisting, tumbling undoing. Not that it matters. All that matters right now, is that Sean is happy, and unafraid. Thinking he was born for this, that fate, divine intervention, whatever, has destined him for this.

Sean thinks he’s falling irreversibly in love, but not just with Finn.

With himself.

•

May is coming to a winding end once more. Sean runs the last track race he’ll ever run, and he doesn’t win, but he doesn’t care. He passes Math, which is wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles. Jenn hugs him when she finds out, wrapping her arms around his shoulder and jumping up and down with him, the graded paper still clutched between his hands; they really are okay after all. He graduates high school. Becomes a free man, as Finn keeps saying, again and again and again that evening. His brothers are out— one of them is still away at college, one’s staying with a girlfriend, but Sean doesn’t really know the full details— and they stumble together into an empty apartment to celebrate, long after leaving the graduation party Sean and Lyla somehow smuggled Finn into. It was really fucking nice, actually, to have a send off to some shitty years of their lives. Tomorrow, Lyla is gonna come round to Sean’s for a barbecue, and they’ll burn all their old books.

And Sean is happy; unafraid. He’s almost eighteen, and life is so much more than the ache of his lungs after a race, the slapping of his shoes against the track. He knows himself, he truly understands who he is. The Sean who wouldn’t kiss his girlfriend back, who refused to open up to his dad, who couldn’t answer Hannah, when she asked him who the fuck he even was is dead and buried. He’s doing great.

And then there’s Finn. Another good, another consistent thing in his life. It’s almost a year, now, actually, and already, there’s nothing new. They fuck, fight, fall in love over and over. Admittedly, Sean doesn’t spend every single second thinking about him, doesn’t feel so hopelessly lovestruck whenever they’re together, but he doesn’t think it’d be normal if he did. He feels like what they have, this commitment, but not an over-investment, is healthy. It certainly feels that way. There are the mundane moments, the times where it’s just whatever, and there are the bad days, where they fall out and snap at each other and clash, collide, suns imploding entire solar systems. But, most of the time, it’s good; consistent. That status used to only belong to one person, to someone so wholly important and constant.

One year ago, Sean and Lyla weren’t really friends. They fell out. It’s hard to believe it even happen, actually, because Lyla has been a constant in Sean’s life since forever. Pop and candy sticks. The omniscience of Eighth grade. Sleepovers and sweatshirts. A cabin in the woods, a certain song and a slow, slow dance.

Tomorrow, they’ll talk in the park for about two hours, lounging over the dried up grass. Conversation will seem to revolve around college, mostly, and how they’re gonna have to make the most of summer break before fucking off to new cities and new schools. Sean might’ve been scared about that once, but he isn’t anymore. He’ll be doing what he loves, art, with new and exciting people just as passionate as him. He’ll come home for the holidays. Life will have a whole new spin on it, a sense of independency. Something more to offer than the hallowed halls of high school.

But there will always, always be room in his life for Lyla Park. Lyla, who is so much more than her gimmicky nickname, far more important than just some friend, but really, truly, the second half of Sean. She knows him better than anyone else in the world, and vice versa. Best freakin’ fighters; Sean, responsible, caring, committed, and Lyla, loving, wise, loyal.

And then, as tomorrow comes to a lazy and winding end, they’ll go to the station— Sean, Lyla, Finn— and Cass will get off her train. She’ll cling to Sean like she hasn’t seen him for months, and he hasn’t seen her for months, and then she’ll fuck his hair up and say it’s grown so much, or whatever. The four of them will get pizza, sit in the park and smoke. Cassidy will talk about college, show off whatever new tattoos she’s gotten, explain the stories and people behind them. Maybe even give Sean a tattoo, like she promised. God, she’s so fucking good. She may not be consistent, may not always text Sean back, but it doesn’t really matter; she’s good.

May is coming to a winding end. Sean will never run around those red-and-white bends again, never find himself pushing on and away from everything daunting in his life. Soon enough, August will come to a winding end, and then, Daniel will cling to him, begging him to stay, complaining he’ll be so bored once he’s in college. And Esteban will help him load the car up, drive with him to his new city and his new college, hug him before he leaves. Hug him like it’s a Friday evening and he is so, so proud.

Sean thought he’d be afraid of all of that; college, graduating, burning his books, getting that long-awaited tattoo. Falling in love. Because, there’s always a moment, as Sean comes to a halt at the end of the track, where he bends over and leans on his knees, panting, sweating, spitting, where he is certain his heart is going to hammer out of his chest. But, in the past year, Sean hasn’t felt as though some vital artery will rupture and blood will come pumping out at an unimaginably high pressure. Sean is slow dancing at prom, with Lyla, laughing his head off because he’s never been more in love with someone quite so important. Sean is doing all of the things, the real and genuine gestures he’s wanted to make, with Finn, because he’s comfortable and at ease around him. Sean is listening to a demo Cassidy has sent him at three in the morning, because she wants his honest opinion on how it sounds, his feelings and thoughts about something so personal to her.

He can’t be afraid, stuck in that overwhelming euphoria. A wave fucking crashing over him, swamping him with the resolute and simple fact that he is in love. His heart is hammering, and it doesn’t even scare him, because it’s bloody, bold, demanding to be heard. That thudding heartbeat is for all of those people, those good and consistent and important people that mean something; and himself.


End file.
